Robin Wood deforestation

Lots going on at Robin Wood today.

An outfit called Euroforest seems to cutting down a large swathe of the section close to the Stanton/Ingleby bridleway. It would be nice to see the plan they are working to. I have written to the Forestry Commission for one.

Notice at entrance to the wood. The map referred to does not exist.

Logs being stacked.



















Coniferous trees being logged today.

Leicestershire County Council delaying tactics

Above: Castle Donington L87 blocked during the Download Festival

I am still waiting to hear from LCC about the closure of the Donington Path during the Download Festival.

I originally contacted them on 16 June. The Rights of Way Office then passed me on to their Highways Office in Mountsorrel. After hearing nothing from them I wrote to the officer concerned a week later. It has taken a week to acknowledge an email and letter sent to the officer. Today I have received a letter saying that I will have to wait up to 28 days or even longer to receive a reply.

Derbyshire gave me the information for the path on their side of the border in minutes.

Why do the wheels turn so slowly across the county border?

Some great writing

With the demise of the Ramblers' Forums (see below), a fair number of contributors have gone over to the Walking Forum.

There's usually something interesting to read there not least the writing of contributor "barewirewalker".

Here's a typical example of his breathless writing that I have enjoyed recently:

Waymarking

A lovely day in Melbourne

A great afternoon to wander down Melbourne FP12. The perfume of camomile was in the air and the red of the poppies contrasted with the fading rape flowers. The little storage hut is sadly in a state of collapse and probably won't last long.

We are lucky to have this path open and this is mainly due to the work done by Dave Adkins the former ROW officer for South Derbyshire.
So thanks Dave and good luck!

Donington Path (continued)

The director of the Download Festival says that he has a copy of a temporary closure order for the path on the Leicestershire side. However the Leicestershire ROW officers seem to have not been informed by the county's legal team.

This order does not cover the Derbyshire side though.

This issue is important as there is a history of path closure here which was supposedly dealt with firmly by the Leicestershire Local Access Forum in 2008.

Hopefully some answers will appear next week.

See post 149 here:

http://forums.downloadfestival.co.uk/m4659848-p8.aspx

Donington Path Closed Again - Download Festival

The Melbourne to Donington footpath has again been blocked.
I can't find any evidence yet of a temporary closure order on the Leicestershire side and Derbyshire CC have confirmed that none was applied for on their side.

The photo above was taken on Monday on the Derbyshire side which was blocked in two places, Further on, the entrance to Leicestershire was also blocked (see below).

More photos here:
http://tinyurl.com/doningtonpath

Open Spaces Society

I have just been appointed Local Correspondent for South Derbyshire for the Open Spaces Society.

The society is the oldest national society involved with protecting footpaths, commons, village greens and other open spaces.

I am looking forward to working with them to protect open spaces in this area.

Their web site is http://www.oss.org.uk

Ramblers Forums Chopped

The Ramblers have closed their forums with little notice to users or even moderators.
Their reason being that the forums were underused.
Not surprising when there was hardly any publicity spent on them and the software was looking a bit out of date.
I think some notice should have been given and some discussion on the forums encouraged about where to go next.

There were some very high quality discussions there particularly on the corruption of Definitive Map (something relevant around here.)

I have pdf-ed some of the best and placed them here for download.

http://tinyurl.com/ramforumposts

Robin Wood Library

There's plenty of reading material up at Robin Wood these days with lots of information about current forestry activities.

However the route marking is not good enough as the bridleway marker is on a gate post which is still on the ground (plus the maps are not very clear). There is still no news why access to the wood has been restricted.

Pool Farm Melbourne Path - Now back in

After some pressure the path at Pool Farm (Melbourne FP26) is back having been sprayed in by the farmer.
This path has not been walk-able for 8 months.

Thanks to Dave Adkins (ROW officer) for his support on this.

Above - looking towards Pool Farm.