BGU Grant F/back 2024 Bolton Ramblers

Bolton Ramblers Group | Saturday 30 March 2024 | 0 Comments

Many thanks for the grant of £200 to Bolton Ramblers group. 

The volunteer footpath group own a strimmer and a hedge cutter – both of these need a service to remain in good working order.  We have contacted a service provider and booked them both in for a service but as they are so busy they could not fit us in till the end of April.  The cost of each service will be approx £60.  

The group also intend to buy some of our own tools (currently volunteers bring their own) - secateurs, loppers and shears. These will be purchased early in April (after Easter)

The Footpath Maintenance group meet monthly to work on footpaths within the Bolton area.  The main aim of the group is to clear vegetation from paths making our Public Rights of Way accessible to all, thereby improving health, wellbeing and fitness. As part of our work we also clear the invasive Himalayan Balsam in an effort to encourage native vegetation, wildflowers and sapling trees to flourish.  

Whilst working on a path we also remove litter and debris – the group have a supply of litter pickers and ‘green’ rubbish bags.

The volunteers who work in the group definitely gain a sense of achievement when we view our before/after photographs and see the improvements we have affected.

The community of ramblers that we engage with, both our walking group and other local walking groups, benefit from easier access to the pathways. We work quite closely with Bolton Council and work on pathways that they refer to us that require clearing but they lack the funds to be able to do so.   
We often receive comments from the public using the Public Rights of Way on how our work has improved their enjoyment of the pathways and improved safety