In 1999 the conservation group decided to celebrate the new millennium by creating a 220 metre permissive footpath from Willow Wood, behind Tennyson Avenue, Bilton to link with the old abandoned mainline railway (now the ‘Nidderdale Greenway’). This short route followed the exact alignment of a section of the former narrow gauge railway – The Barber Line.
With the support of Harrogate Borough Council, which owns the land, and some muscle power from young student soldiers from the Army Foundation College about 80 tonnes of gravel was laid and compacted in a shallow slot cut by an Environment Agency volunteer using a trenching machine. ‘Millennium Path’ was born!
It proved a very popular and well-used route across a notoriously wet and badly drained piece of land. Unfortunately the last 15 years have seen the once-distant willows and shrubs gradually encroach and overshadow the path rendering it in unusable. Harrogate Borough Council Parks Department came to the rescue in early January 2015 by mechanically cutting back the thick branches and bringing in a JCB to re-cut the slot. To our delight the exposed path was found to be largely intact. Volunteers have gathered up all the brash which was fed into the council’s chipper and taken off site for recycling elsewhere.
Our ambition now is to reconstruct the path to 1.5 metres, with wooden, shuttered sides and a fresh layer of compacted gravel or road planings to create a sound footpath for the next 20 years. We will attend to the wetter areas by installing some short cross-drains.
We are hopeful that our appeal through the pages of the Harrogate Advertiser on 22nd January will attract a sponsor for the 60+ tonnes of in-fill material needed and we have set aside £500 of our own funds for the timber and ironmongery. The project will need a lot of enthusiasm and physical effort and we hope to be able to call on the AFC to lend a hand.
Meanwhile students from the Grove Academy (Pupil Referral Unit) have continued to prepare the site by trimming the remaining overhanging branches and clearing vegetation to rot down into ‘habitat piles’.
The main bulk of the work will probably take place in March 2015 when conditions under foot should be drier.
If you think you might have an hour to spare, to offer encouragement, loan (or push) a wheelbarrow, or simply hand out refreshments – please get in touch. As we learnt in 1999 ‘many hands make light work’.
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