Anything that increases awareness should be a good thing.
That said I have often found that there is no sensible "slow route" available in the existing ROW network. Should we therefore be looking for that logical route that maybe once existed but didn't find it's way onto the definitive map.
Where's BWW?
Not too far away Andies.
My first inkling of this was ITV's late news last night and I got the the impression that it was a Rambler's initiative, my first reaction was to think, "At Last", we break out of the set piece of Short Circular walks led by the local RA leader with a penchant for command and a pocketful of membership forms.
However, I think the news reader did refer to the news item as an slow network rather than a map. My first reaction 'At Last a Brilliant Concept', but 30 years too late, but still a usable concept if it is part of a strategy linking Lostways to 2026, then adding all the additional links and infrastructure that should have been built in since the 1949 Act.
Why 30 years too late, it was in 1990 that Natural England's survey of the Pennine Way earned the local rural economy £8000/mile/year? Yet even to this day the CLA does not recognize footpaths as part of a National Asset.
The idea seems to have come from Dan Raven-Ellison and I applaud him, yet I wonder if he has done enough homework on the network to fully understand how good such an idea could develop into. Seeing his picture makes me realize that he probably has a few more years under his belt than I have.
That is why I find hope in this;
It is not just a tool to encourage us to walk more, it is a campaigning tool. Once a route is identified, there is something to defend and to improve. It is then more than just a new resource, it is a way of trying to change a debate.
As the most encouraging statement of intent from the website.