Tag: somerset

  • Somerset Council supports the Greenway

    Somerset Council supports the Greenway

    It has been an interesting end to 2023 for the Grand Western Greenway. We held our inaugural meeting 12 months ago and set the following objectives for the year which felt pretty stretching at the time:

    1. Recruit 250 supporters over the next six months
    2. Engage with two landowners and negotiate a written commitment
    3. Participate in the Sustainable Travel Between Wellington and Taunton study commissioned by Somerset Council
    4. Raise £1500
    5. Create publicity material to promote the campaign
    6. Participate in one promotion event such as the Wellington Pop-Up shop

    We described the first year as one in which we wanted to make friends with people, and we have certainly done that! Let’s look at those objectives, and maybe you can decide how we’ve done.

    1. Recruit 259 supporters. We have over 400 people subscribed to the campaign, and have recruited businesses ranging from small CICs to the largest employer in Somerset. Somerset NHS Trust and the Integrated Care Board as provider and commissioner recognise the enormous benefit to be had from ready access to nature and exercise. Do you reckon we can move that up to 1000 people this year?
    2. We are actively engaged with two landowners, both of whom are having realistic and positive discussions with us about how they can best support the Greenway. There is a long way to go, but engagement and commitment are our touchstones for 2024.
    3. We have participated in the unusual Somerset Council study. I say unusual because it came to a conclusion that they don’t seem to support themselves. That was that the Council should build a path alongside the A38. This is despite it costing at least four times as much as a countryside path, is generally unpopular with all but a small group of travellers, and starts a mile from Wellington town centre and ends at least another mile from Taunton town centre. The Council acknowledges that they would be very unlikely to build such a path and therefore fully support the community-led Greenway. This support is extended to any number of Parish and Town Councils, as well as receiving the enthusiastic backing of County Councillors across the political spectrum.
    4. We have raised in excess of £1500 pounds through the generosity of Taunton Town 
    5. Richard Huish College have taken the Greenway on as a project for their A level art and design students to develop the materials to promote the campaign. They have received their brief from us, and have a deadline to complete in time for our last objective….
    6. We have the Pop-Up shop in Wellington Fore Street booked for a week in April!
  • What a year!

    What a year!

    With your support, we have made much progress with the Greenway. 

    Somerset Council has agreed to fully support the project (sadly, without any money) despite their own options assessment supporting a route alongside the A38.

    We have presented our campaign to numerous parish and town councils, all of whom have pledged their support. Important County councillors are actively lobbying on our behalf, and we have developed relationships with innumerable influential people and organisations.

    Somerset Foundation NHS Foundation Trust is the biggest employer in Somerset with responsibility for all the hospital and community care in both mental and physical health, as well as running a number of GP surgeries across the county. The Trust supports the Greenway at Board level in recognition of the crucial part that nature and exercise has to play in the health of our communities.

    The Somerset Integrated Care Board (it has had many names and guises before including the Health Authority, PCT, PCG etc) welcome the Greenway as an active space that can be used for Social Prescriptions i.e. supported exercise and activity in conjunction with traditional treatment.

    Wellington Town Council strongly demonstrated their support of the Greenway by identifying £10,000 in their 2024 budget to be used for kickstarting the campaign and supporting its development.

    Somerset Community Trust has generously granted a significant sum for us to develop materials to promote the campaign and to continue our development.

    So, thank you to you, our supporters. Thank you for coming on our journey, and especially to those of you who have ‘Walked the Greenway’ with us. We continue to do this on a monthly basis so, if you want to join us on one, sign up on the Events page on our website.

    Thank you!

  • Council conundrum

    Council conundrum

    Somerset Council has published their much delayed options appraisal for sustasinable travel between Wellington and Taunton. It looked at an enormous amout of information about the two towns, our populations and the current forms of travel between them. Needless to say, they noted the majority used the heavily congested A38

    They then looked at a number of routes for active travel and, after much deliberation, settled

    on….. yes, you guessed it…. four routes along the A38; two on the north side and two on the south. They decided these would be favoured by people with less ability because there is no lighting on the Greenway – or on the A38 apart from a small section from the Chelston roundabout to the Blackdown Garden Centre. There were quite a few anomalous findings, but the crunch comes with cost. To build a route beside a road is at least four times as expensive as building one across open countryside!

    So here is the conundrum. Somerset Council has no money to build anything so no action will

    come of the report until such time as their finances are returned to health. But, because the Greenway is a community-driven project built by us, they fully support us in our endeavours. They also support building an A38 route in sections but cannot see themselves doing that now or at anytime in the forseeable future. We ran a small poll on this website a few weks ago asking you which route your preferred, and you responded with a thumping 85% in favour of a Greenway. As a result of consultation earlier this week, the Council will form a position statemnt stating the above which will go to the Council Executive in January forconsideration of adoption into policy. 

    This is important for us because we now know we have the full support of the council and any number of County Councillors. The Greenway appeals to so many both as a commuter route and a leisure facility. It is accessible to all ages and abilities and cannot fail to bring added prosperity to the area. So, bouyed by this result, we enter the new year with plans to start concentrating on phase one from Wellington to Nynehead.

    This is the point where we need to start bolstering our very small team. We need people experienced in land negotiations, planners, builders and fundraisers. We have many partnerships already, but if you think you have something to offer, please get in touch.

  • How other people do it…

    How other people do it…

    We are not the only people who campaign to achieve their ambition about how cycling could be a more pleasant experience in Somerset. The Strawberry Line has been under construction for a long time, with the most significant part between Yatton and Cheddar. More sections are underway in Somerset, and in March 2022, a new section betwen Wells and Dulcote was opened.

    The continuing work is managed by the Greenways and Cycleroutes in the form of John Grimshaw with whom our project has a strong relationship. John is the founder of Sustrans, and is the instigator and engineer that inspired the Bristol to Bath Cyclepath. He works with local contractors in a way that is sympathetic to the local environment, and which keeps costs to a level that is much more manageable than using large corporate organisations.

    This section has got to this stage in 11.5 days!

    Access for the farmer getting across his land has necessitated the construction which was designed by John and installed by the same contractor.

    The trackbed of the old railway is roughly at the level of the tracks on the digger, but nothing is lost as material is transferred from one section to another to fill in the dips.

    This section from Draycott is complete and has the first season of growth being managed by local volunteers who maintain the path.

    In the distance you can just about glimpse Wells Cathedral

    The Grand Western Green Association will adopt a similar approach to the Strawberry Line in that we hope to build in sections starting from Taunton to Silk Mills, and then from the Wellington Station through to the Nynehead Road. A phased approach to construction allows time for money to be raised, and for the concept to become deeply embedded in the minds of planners, volunteers and users alike.