Footpath Report – February 2019

1) Monday 21st January – walked 2.7 miles with Mike Goodwin, Herefordshire Ramblers’ Work Party Coordinator, to assess potential assistance repairing stiles on Paths HO10, HO13, HO14, HO16 & HO17

2) Monday 28th January – met one landowner with Mike Goodwin, Ramblers Work Party Coordinator and spoke to 2 other landowners about potential stile work and walked 2.8 miles to check paths HO6, parts of HO13, HO14, HO10, HO9 and HO8A.

3) Walked 0.8 miles to check new steps on two HO13 stiles and the HO10 gate stile to see if any work had been carried out by the landowners,

Great stuff -thank you to the landowner. HO13 metal gate stile still not fixed.

4) Friday 8th February planned to be the day for a Ramblers’ Work Party to fix the River Lugg stiles, but a forecast for heavy rain forced us to abandon that plan.

5) Monday 11th February walked 1.3 miles to check the River Lugg stiles following flooding of the river.

6) Monday 18th February walked 2.1 miles to check River Lugg flooding. River back down to normal levels and stiles accessible and ground firm.

7) Friday 22nd February walked 0.8 miles with Ramblers’ Work Party to replace one River Lugg stile and re-position another one upright. The Work Party also improved the footbed of the HO13 bridge from Shelwick Lane and removed a pipe on the field side which walkers had slipped on and replaced with a step (pipe removed with the approval of the landowner).

Improvements also made to another HO13 stile across the field – making it more stable and replacing a rotten step. The footbridge’s wooden structure will need to be replaced/rebuilt in the future and a request for this will be put in to Balfour Beatty.

Many thanks to the other members of the Ramblers Work Party!

Duncan Smart (DGS),
Holmer & Shelwick Parish Footpath Officer