Working with Peak Park Trails Rangers

I ventured out along the Tissington Trail today. I parked at Alsop en la Dale and headed south towards Ashbourne to meet up with Peak Park Trails rangers who I knew were working in the Mapleton car park area. It is a section of Peakland trail that I haven't cycled along for ages and despite the grey, heavy clouds it made me think again how lucky we are to live where we do with all of  this lovely countryside right on our doorstep. On the way down the trail was pretty much empty, except for the odd dog walker and I was able to use the gentle downward slope to travel along quite quickly. It was wet and amazingly quite busy on the way back!

Peak Park Authority now has two dedicated trails rangers who look after Tissington, High Peak, Monsal and Thornhill trails. The purpose of my visit to meet up with Dave and Emily was to see how we might be able to assist them with some track maintenance in 2020. Given our training with Marion Farrell and her Groundwork team I feel as though we have well and truly demonstrated our capability with bow saw and loppers.

It was very soon evident that significant trackside scrub clearing and tree cutting has been undertaken, especially south of the Tissington car park. Regular piles of thin tree boughs are dotted along the route to provide natural habitat that will encourage a greater diversity of fauna to live close to the trail. As I closed in on where the rangers had obviously been working the extent of their activity became even more colossal with much larger trees felled and large sections of trunk awaiting movement to firewood providers, I presume.

As Dave and Emily had been held up getting to the site I decided to go and treat myself to a coffee and cake at the wonderful "stickyfingers" cafe in Ashbourne. I enjoyed a coffee and lovely mince pie, even though I had hardly earned the latter. When I finally caught up with the rangers they told me;

The planned resurfacing of a large section of Tissington trail, north of Ashbourne is due to take place in February 2020 but due to a delay in getting a bridge certfified the whole job may now have to be deferred until February 2021.

The use of volunteers by Peak Park Authority is becoming more difficult without a lot of accompanying supervision. Dave and Emily are concerned that the limitations on their supervisory resource will prevent them from using a lot of high number volunteer groups. There will be some opportunities and he will certainly think about how he might be able to use the services that we are offering.

As an alternative, what they are looking to do is to appoint a smaller number of trails volunteers who will be formally recruited, undergo specific training and then induction sessions before they are let out to work in a much less supervised way, in pairs. Application for these posts is likely to start in March 2020.

Dave is happy to accede to our request for additional signage at Parsley Hay. He will let us have some dates in 2020 when he can be there to discuss the positioning of signage and planting of appropriate new posts (he will supply), if necessary.

The question of signing NCR 548 out of Hartington is not something that is of any concern to him, nor is the condition of NCR 548 from its start point to Dale end, Biggin. He is putting me in touch with the Ranger whose responsibility that trail is and I will take the matter up with them.

Dave is appreciative of our links with them (I think) but I am not sure that they will generate any great level of request for help from us, certainly not on a regular basis.

To note: the signage along the trail, together with signpositing to NCR 547 from Tissington all seemed perfectly adequate and in tact.

Route 680 - Temporary link section

You are all aware that I have been actively working with Derbyshire Disctrict Council over the last 18 months to try and find temporary alternative routes for the (2) missing links in the White Peak Loop.

It has proved difficult to identify suitable temporary alternative routes for missing sections of the White Peak Loop around Buxton which can be promoted for leisure and family cycling, due to the busy nature of some roads which are used by a considerable number of heavy goods vehicles. The missing section between Blackwell Mill/ Millers Dale and Buxton is therefore likely to remain "missing" for the forseeable future. The recruitment of a replacement DCC project manager has been stalled several times and whilst we came close in the summer to getting somebody in the post, the offer was withdrawn at the 11th hour. Without a project manager to lead the work necessary it is unlikely there will be any substantial progress. 

However, as a result of our regular discussions with DCC, funding has been secured to improve the condition of an existing bridleway which runs between Church Lane, Rowsley and Coombs Road, Bakewell as an interim measure to complete that as a temporary link. A scheme is currently being drawn up to carry out drainage work and surface repairs. It is certainly not an ideal option due to the severity of inclines at either end of the link. However, it is certainly better than having to use the A6 and it provides some absolutely fantastic views of the lower Wye and Derwent valleys. DCC are looking at the practicalities of a cycle crossing point on the A6 in Rowsley, next to the Peacock hotel. Hopefully in 2020 we will be able to sign the route officially as a temporary alternative part of NCR680.

Whilst that is all very good, positive news, the rumours are getting stronger about the reactivation of the Monsal trail as a working railway. All major political parties recognise the need to improve the rail infrastructure and this includes opening up abandoned rail lines, even if they are being put to very good use in alternative ways. Whilst the Peak Park Authority has pledged that any development could only take place if an equally suitable alternative to the Monsal Trail (NCR680) is found and developed, we might question whether even they have the strength and resilience to resist the onslaught of political and commercial pressures seeking compulsory purchase orders? If anything is likely to happen it is probable that we will see strong signs during 2020. Watch this space!

Supporting Groundwork with Track Maintenance

Once again there is a complete lack of photos to illustrate the full extent of our activities at last Monday's work day. My fault entirely, sorry for that failing!!

Anyway, a really enthusiastic bunch of White Peak Sustrans Rangers rather dominated the numbers of other regular volunteers of the Groundwork team, led by Marion Farrell. As well as David and Catherine the group also included David S, Brian and our latest recruit Jenni Ebbrell from Ashbourne (plus me). In addition we had two prospective recruits from Warslow and we hope to welcome John, Ian and possibly Doug too into our ranger numbers early in the New Year.

The weather was fantastic but after a heavy frost those tasked with removing leaves off the boardwalk section of track just south of Rowsley found that big clumps of wet vegetation were well and truly frozen to the planks. It was very hard work to get them off but by the end of the session much progress had been made and the cycle track pretty well clear of leaves. It is good to see that DCC has substantially replaced the broken planks, but how long it will be before others become damaged, we'll have to wait and see.

Individually, and in small groups, we worked closely with other members of the assembled team and found that a number of them also had a keen interest in cycling. John and Caroline from Cressbrook are particularly keen to think about becoming Sustrans rangers and so we were able to carry out some informal recruitment activity as we sawed and lopped our way along the verges of NCR680. This was a section of track  we have spent quite a lot of time working on earlier in the year but Marion certainly feels as though it has a lot of interesting wildlife and fauna habitats that she wants us to develop. It was wonderful to see so many people (cyclists and walkers) using the trail

Further sessions will be required in the New Year. Monday 3 February has been proposed.

Thanks to all for a pretty intense morning of quite heavy work, but the bright sun, blue skies and convivial spirit (not to mention double helping of chocolate biscuits) all made it into a very enjoyable experience.

David and Catherine did go onto look again at the possibility of an alternative route at the start of NCR548 near Hartington. Unfortunately it is too complex a problem for a ready solution and so we will defer that task until next year. Thanks to them both for diverting round to look at the issue.