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Back during the winter of 2009 – 2010 the Pathways team led on the consultation as part of the Lakes to Dales Landscape Designation Project on behalf of Natural England. The project looked at whether certain areas between the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales National Parks should be designated as National Park or Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).
We worked with Countryscape to lead the consultation, which involved setting up and delivering a number of drop-in events across the counties. The photos you see here are taken at some of those meetings that we held, all in spite of the heavy snow the fell during this winter.
Recently it has been announced that officials from Natural England have approved extensions. If confirmed by the Secretary of State, it will see the boundaries of the Yorkshire Dales National Park expand to encompass another 162 square miles.
This extension would see the inclusion of parts of the Orton Fells, the northern Howgill Fells, Wild Boar Fell and Mallerstang to the north, and to the west, Barbon, Middleton, Casterton and Leck Fells, the River Lune and part of Firbank Fell and other fells to the west of the river.
Recently the Fix the Fells team started evaluating paths with the help of their committed volunteers. Above is Steve, the National Trust West Valleys Upland Footpath Team Supervisor, who is evaluting the path on the Helvellyn summit.
May from our team has been working with the Fix the Fells team and their path volunteers to develop an evaluation criteria for assessing their paths. Working together they created a set of points against which they can go out and assess the paths.
We’ve been told that in this photo above you can see how the path on the righthand side was spreading outwards with no containment.
In the photo below, looking up the path to where Steve was evaluating, you can see the lefthand side has been recovered.
We are still carrying out our consultation work for Fix the Fells and have received some more great photos from our team Kate and Ellie who have been climbing the peaks to interview hikers.
Last Friday 24th June they were up Stickle Tarn – that’s 1,500 feet up and pretty chilly! Lots of friendly and cheerful interviewees, which made for a successful day.
On Saturday they headed back up Catbells in drizzle and later drove to Seathwaite Farm in Borrowdale, where they’d been the week before.
And yesterday they went into Coniston and drove up the Old Man track and set up the stall at Miner’s Bridge, interviewing people as they passed. We hear the weather was much nicer than the rain from Saturday, and even the sun came out briefly.
For the last week our fab team – Kate and Ellie – have been up mountains in the Lake District interviewing people for our Fix the Fells work. They have also been in Keswick speaking to people in the town, and have been sending us updates and great photos of what they’ve been up to.
This is undoubtedly our highest consultation ever! And check out the beautiful banner Ellie made for the consultation…
We thought it would be nice to include a few of the reports from Kate and Ellie:
Thursday 16th June 2011
We were heading for the top of Helvellyn this morning but it was pouring with rain, so we headed to the Moot Hall in Keswick. We enjoyed a trickled of interviewees there, but as soon as it brightened up we headed back out up to Catbells where we had a steady flow of people who all thought it was a good idea us being up there. Let’s hope the weather is better than forecast tomorrow! Best wishes, Kate
Saturday 18th June 2011
The cloud was down and the rain light though persistent, but many a hardy walker passed our little base at the entrance to Seathwaite Farm. Nearly all we stopped were happy to chat, despite either being keen to get on with their five-hour hikes or absolutely exhausted after returning from such exertions!
Pathways 