Shrewsbury P3 presentation To Shrewsbury Ramblers AGM Nov 2019

What is P3.

P3 is short for Parish Paths Partnership. There are some 50 groups around Shropshire although not all of them are active.

Footpath issues are reported to the council by members of the public. The council then prioritises them depending if there is a hazard to walkers and also whether it is a major footpath e.g. the Severn Way or the Shropshire Way. The council worker, in our case David Hardwick, then liaises with the landowner(s), gets the appropriate hardware and, a couple of days in advance, informs me where we will be working. Transport is then organised. The council provides us with a budget for transport and tools which gets to us via the Shrewsbury Ramblers accounts.

Who is Shrewsbury P3?

Shrewsbury P3 is a group of volunteers who have an interest in working on footpaths in order to keep them easily accessible. Six people out of 15 belong to the Shrewsbury Ramblers. This may seem a low number but please remember some Ramblers members are busy recce-ing and leading walks, and other individuals also have other time consuming jobs on the committee.

Slides A1 – A5 Personnel 5 no

Various reasons for volunteering are suggested. I suppose the most obvious one is that regular ramblers and walk leaders have an interest in keeping footpaths in good condition. Other volunteers enjoy the teamwork, keeping fit and the banter (we have sorted out issues with Shrewsbury Town FC, The England rugby team and even Brexit). But I think the main reason is that at the end of the day they can see the good work they have done when an overgrown jungle with rotting furniture is transformed to a usable footpath.

Our volunteers normally give up 1 or 2 days, even up to 4 days every month.

There are generally 4 work parties per month usually with between 4 and 6 volunteers. We are normally able to fit 3 kissing gates or stiles per day, filling any spare time up installing the odd Marker or Finger post.

There is also a ‘Mini P3’. This is where between 1 and 3 of us go out to rectify specific small issues on our ’20 Walks’ routes, examples being paths clearing by brushcutter, repairing or replacing marker posts and renewing stile steps.

Shrewsbury P3 is unique in Shropshire. Where other P3 groups work largely around their own Parish, we cover an area from Shrewsbury towards the south of the county. This means we can travel some 60 miles on the day.

During the last 12 months much of our work has been around the areas of Church Stretton, Wenlock Edge, and Craven Arms.

Also with the advent of the re-defined Shropshire Way the P3 team has been working to make sure that that route is easy and safe to follow and traverse.

So what things do we do?

Pics (1b1+1b2 Path clearing) ( Stile 1b3) ( Kissing gate 1b4) ( Ped gates 1b5)(Horse sized gates 1b6) (Farm gates and marker posts 1b7 Munslow) )( Hope Valley bridge 1b8)

From November 2018 we started off working very much as we had done in previous years, working on installing Stiles, Kissing gates ( the ones with the hoops), Pedestrian gates – without the hoops , and install and repair bridges. Pics 1c1 – 1c6 5 no.

At the beginning of March we were given an interesting and varied job in Pitchford. A broken bridge with a stile each end was replaced with a new wider bridge with a stile one side and a pedestrian gate the other. It was certainly a tiring day as the slope down to the stream was too steep for the council vehicle to negotiate so we had to carry everything up and down the hill.

By the end of February stiles and metal gates were in short supply so we concentrated our efforts mainly along the Wenlock Edge installing steps onto steep terrain.

Rushbury. 1d1 – 1d7 5 no.

Rushbury was the first site to be tackled. In the first picture you may notice a rope which was put there to help walkers up and down the hill. We completed 2 sessions here.

Edgton 1e1 – 1e10 9 no.

Edgton was the next slope we tackled. We installed 45 steps in 2 sessions, a third session being interrupted by a particularly snowy day.

Bishops Castle 1f1 – 1f6 5 no.

April saw us helping a group in Bishops Castle where we edged and gravelled a length of path at the top end of the town. Strangely enough, although the locals told me it went to a much loved garden area, the path seemed to lead directly to the ‘Three Tuns’ pub and The Castle Hotel!

Darnford Valley. 1g1 – 1g7 7no.

More work was done in the Darnford Valley near Bridges. This well walked path had a sleeper bridge which had almost rotted away and the path was eroding in a couple of places. We spent a day in August making good.

So what have we done locally?

Locally 1h1 – 1h3 3no.

In January, the handrail was repaired on the Bicton Walk no 4 near Copthorne. Also the steps were eroding so we made good with hardcore.

Pics 1j1 – 1j4 4no

The footpath edges were reinforced in a couple of places around the Severn Way in the Monkmoor area where the River Severn had eroded the edges of the path.

Pics. 1k2 – 1k6 5 no

Also on the Cound Walk No 12, a stile was overgrown, and another stile had broken free from its fixings. A marker post had rotted at the bottom and so was fixed to a local piece of rock.

Other walks have been routinely cleared of undergrowth and overgrowth during the year.

Pic. 1L5 ---Why do we bother???

There are times when circumstances conspire against us we sometimes think ‘Why do we bother?

Pic. 1L6

Sometimes when we do a good job in inclement conditions the result is, temporarily at least, not good. Pics 1L7-1L9

This bridleway near Aston on Clun is apparently dry-ish in summer but not in October.

Pic 1L10

Why did Mike bother to try to catch this stake? I can reveal that Mike was actually throwing the stake, not trying to catch it.

So to summarise our work this year slide 11-07 p1

Slide T1

Of the approx 50 P3 groups around the county we work 1 in 7 of the county’s total hours.

Slide T2

In the year to Nov 2019 Shrewsbury P3 has worked on 4 days clocking up 1590 volunteer hours which is comparable with last year.

Slide T3

Owing to the shortage of metal gates since March we have installed 21 metal gates compared with 42 last year and 32 stiles – 12 last year. This is not good news for large groups of ramblers who can take much longer to negotiate stiles

Also 27 stile steps have been repaired and 34 marker/finger posts erected.

Slide T4

The length of paths brushcut and cleared was 1750 metres- about 1 mile.

In addition we have revetted and hardcored 126 metres of path.

Slide T5

Finally we have installed 5 bridges, repaired 2 bridges and and 83 steps.

I know some walk leaders have already used some of the paths we have worked on. Any walk leader who is stuck for somewhere to go, there are plenty of good paths around Church Stretton, Wenlock Edge and Craven Arms and of course the newly defined Shropshire Way.

Slide T9

I would like to congratulate our P3 team who work hard under sometimes adverse conditions. I hear of other voluntary organisations whose members are unreliable but the volunteers of Shrewsbury P3 team always turn up when they say they will. And still they keep smiling and coming back for more.

Peter Knight