A cash windfall from the Ramblers’ Association (RA) has helped save two well-known and popular Lake District footpaths, which had become badly eroded.
After reporting the damage to the National Park Authority, the RA’s Lake District Area contributed £4500 to the total cost of repairing the two routes at Wansfell and Crummock Water.
Both paths had fallen victim to their own success, and so popular had they become that the sheer number of people walking the routes was causing unsustainable damage. The path to Wansfell, easily accessed from Ambleside, had eroded into a meter-deep gully forcing walkers to form new routes, further spreading the erosion.
The cost to the Lake District National Park for repairing the 350m stretch of path totalled £19,000, with other money coming from the Heritage Lottery Fund and other private donors.
Because the Crummock Water path is low-lying and often very wet it had become very boggy in places and was spreading across an important wetland habitat as walkers looked for a route that offered a good, dry footing. The total cost of repair for the 150m section was £22,000.
The Lake District’s first ever online appeal to raise £5 million to repair 145 eroded upland paths was launched last year by celebrity walkers Kim Wilde and Ian Botham. At the same time an innovative special website – www.fixthefells.co.uk - was created to tell the public how paths are damaged and how they can donate money to repair them.
