“Spade to Sod - At Last”
We’re not quite in “One Small Step for Man” territory but March 25th., 2024 was a significant day for Nottinghamshire Ramblers.
The Rights of Way (ROW) team had long been trying to persuade Notts County Council (NCC) to use Ramblers volunteers for ROW maintenance but there always seemed to be reasons why they wouldn’t let us get involved – problems with insurance, right of access from landowners, difficulty in ensuring quality workmanship. The list seemed endless but a chink of light appeared last year with permission to put waymarking discs on the Trent Valley Way.
Then more recently NCC approached us to ask us to carry out some ROW maintenance in Ossington, a deeply rural parish near Newark. Thanks are due to Helen Swift and Neil Lewis from NCC for resuscitating the arrangements we were on the verge of implementing in Ossington before lockdown came upon us, frustrating the plans.
Dave Johnson, the Newark Footpath Secretary, was the link person and he assembled a small work party of six volunteers from Newark Group. Neil and Helen were brilliant and supplied all the tools, instructions, plentiful hot drinks and a large array of chocolate biscuits.
Although there was a little bit of vegetation clearance the main work was replacing metal fingerposts and wooden yellow marker posts. This involved digging holes 75cm deep through heavy clay soil entwined with tree roots – heavy work and maybe I won’t be so enthusiastic in the future about reporting broken and missing posts!
Let’s hope this is the first of many such ventures. We wouldn’t have been able to do the Ossington work without a spirit of mutual cooperation between Ramblers, NCC and the local landowners – it is vital in my opinion that these links are encouraged.
James McGill
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