The Ramblers' Work Party

17 volunteers about to start out on a work party from Leckhampstead in November 2008

The RWP started in August 2003 and we have recently finished working our way through the parishes in West Berkshire.  We have now started to go round again and so far have completed three.  The group meets fortnightly and uses the database held by West Berkshire Council (WBC).   Every path in the parish is walked, checked against the database and low level maintenance carried out.  We can usually reduce the number of problems in a parish by more the 50%.   Our most successful parish was Farnborough where we obtained a 76% reduction of problems. A sub group, under the leadership of Colin Honeybone, has been steadily putting in a variety of installations, mainly gates, and the 112^th installation has recently been completed.

In 2005 The Ramblers awarded us ‘The Group of the Year’ for our work with ROWs. The Ramblers were especially interested in our way of organising the group.  Any one who is a member of the Ramblers Association and is interested is welcome to come along to a work party. He or she may come to every session or only two or three each year as their other commitments permit.  This relaxed way of working has proved to be very successful.

A small number of Ramblers continue to work with volunteers from the Phoenix Centre in Newbury which supports adults with learning disabilities. This group also meets fortnightly and is used by WBC to carry out ROW maintenance, usually in response to a condition report from a member of the public.

West Berkshire Ramblers (WBR) responded to the RA Challenge ‘Use Your Paths’ by asking members to walk all their grid squares against WBC database, as it was felt this was more productive than just walking grid squares.  Our number of grid squares in West Berkshire was 504 and this covered 32 parishes.  We managed to complete the project by the end of 2007 and those involved in the project found it to be interesting and enjoyable.

Fiona Walker

1^st February 2010

Next time you are on Snelsmore Common do look out for our Fiona's gate

This map of West Berkshire parishes indicates the progress made in footpath clearance. We have now completed all the Parishes
 apart from Basildon which is dealt with by local volunteers and Beech Hill which is dealt with by a single local volunteer.
And now we have started all over again!

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