Well outdoorsy lads and lasses, I'll be willing to bet that UK budgets for parks, trails and open spaces is ebbing just as it is here in the U.S.
So perhaps what all of us who are "outdoorsy" types need to find a trail or other underfunded aspect of outdoor recreation and see if we can volunteer our time and labor (labour?) to do work that the various government agencies can no longer afford to do adequately if at all.
It's truly up to us to try to at least maintain outdoor facilities while we await funds for new ones. For me it's trail maintenance in the Spring Mountains near Las Vegas. Also it's serving on a committee trying to raise funds for a 110 mile Vegas Valley Rim Trail. Fully 1/3 of that trail already exists in the form of other trails built by various agencies. We expect 8 years to full completion. It sometimes takes a long view for big projects.
I've done that sort of thing back in the olden days when I had time on my hands. I joined the Conservation Volunteers and would get bussed to and from various Lake District projects. Only yesterday I was out with a friend and we walked a short stretch along one of 'my' paths. I feel as though I have a vested interest in it, and as it's an incredibly popular path (near Grasmere) it's good to see that it's equal to the pounding it gets. I did a bit of drystone walling too, and the guy in charge of the project didn't exactly dish out the praise. He said that if our wall was still in good condition after 100 years, then he would give us all medals! One day I'd like to go to North Wales and see a path I worked on in 1975. But you're right... well worth doing... great job satisfaction... and hopefully something you can revisit and see the good you did.
I used to do it after uni when I had a brief spell signing on. BTCV that is and also done a Nat Trust working week holiday.
I have done BTCV work in Lancs and Cumbria. Difference in types of jobs is probably obvious but both groups I found rewarding. The Lancashire group had two sorts, the young people wanting to get into conservation and those older people who have retired with time on their hands. The latter group were the hardest workers (apart from me of course). One of the older ones had an amazing encyclopeadic knowledge of plants of all kinds. Knowledge of ferns, mosses, funghi, animals and birds was also really good. YOu do meet allsorts of people volunteering with the BTCV and NT over here.
It is a good idea to volunteer. I would suggest to anyone interested to contact their local conservation organisation. Whether its the BTCV, NT, local wildlife trusts, RSPB or even English Nature. There are lots of charities and organisations out there doing work parties and it is not just path work. If you are interested in the outdoors its important to look after the whole of the ecology so paths and trails repairs are part of it you also need to do other things whether its fencing off for re-seeding or woodland management (usually means cutting some of the trees out and other thinning tasks). I do like the tree felling (only up to a certain size trunk of course as you leave the larger ones).
I had the pleasure of doing dry stone walling a few times. Once for NT in Wales. We were at a loose end in tasks so they sent us to "help" the professional waller. We did about 3 metres in legnth in a few hours which totally annoyed the waller who got paid partly on length of wall he does. He would have gotten more done if we weren't there. Anyway we stood back proud of our section of wall. Then the next day we drove past it in the landie and it had all been knocked down and totally re-built by the waller that very morning before we turned up at 9am!! He'd done it all and the same again further up and gone on to his next job in less than an hour apparently. Was funny when 3 lasses and 3 guys were trying to move this large rock. The guy came along and pushed us all out of the way and picked it up with little trouble, put it on his shoulder, carried it over to his Landie pick-up and dumped it in. I tell you it was a really large rock.
I've seen the efforts of novice drystone wallers pulled down time and time again by a professional. One of them even said... "Did you never play with Lego as a kid?"
One of the best wallers I ever met was a guy working all on his lonesome high up in the North Pennines. I was surprised, because he was a retired policeman! Anyway, he said that whenever anyone quizzed him about how good his walls were, he always told them... "The wind might get through the gaps, but I guarantee you won't be able to see light through them." I had a good squint at his handiwork and everything was incredibly tightly fit.
Good to hear that ther are private organizations in the UK doing volunteer labor on trails. I guess the trick is to do the necessary work without making the responsible government agency reliant on volunteer work in order to pad their budgets indefinitely.
