Countryside cuts deplorable, say Shropshire ramblers

The team that looks after Shropshire’s rights of way, its country parks and heritage sites is facing a £100,000 budget cut and redundancies – despite helping to bring in £500,000 last year.

Shrewsbury's network of footpaths, particularly those around the fringe of the urban area, could suffer as the council has already earmarked a £50,000 cut in funding rights of way.

Outdoor Partnerships Team could lose some of its managers of country parks and sites with staff asked to apply for voluntary funding.

The Shropshire Wild Team, which care for footpaths and stiles, will end unless external funding can be found.

Excellent

Peter Carr, chairman of Shropshire Rambers, said members of the association had an excellent partnership with the countryside team at Shropshire Council, providing volunteers for maintenance work to the footpaths.

He said: "Whilst we deplore further cuts in the rights of way and parks budget we understand the councils dilemma.

"However, we view this as a short-sighted solution. It is widely acknowledged that access to good well mantained green spaces and walking areas is highly beneficial in maintaining health and fitness and mental well being. These cuts in the outdoor partnership budgets will undoubtable, in the long term, increase costs elsewhere."

He said in the last two years alone one team of volunteers working with the outdoor partnership group had put 25 new gates in along footpaths.

Worry

"We have noticed that the footpaths that we do help maintain are getting increased use. The worry is that without the funding for materials and tools this maintenance and improvement will not continue and use will go down."

He said the association would do what it could to help.

"The ramblers will continue to work with the outdoor partnership team as volunteers to help maintain paths and find innovative solutions to solve the ongoing problems."

Earlier this week Shropshire council’s communities overview committee heard that the proposed cuts are because of the withdrawal of public health funding.

Income

Shona Butler, council officer, said: “The Outdoor Partnership Team continues to be focused on income generation; with £500k expected in 2018/19 and increased income targets for 2019/20. It is facing a £100,000 cut, 11.5 per cent of its budget, in 2019/20 due to the withdrawal of public health funding.

“This will be met by the voluntary redundancy among country parks and sites managers and ceasing to run the Shropshire Wild Teams unless external funding can be secured.”

She said Outdoor Partnerships had already had a 58 per cent cut in budget since 2012/13 and said this would impact on services.