"The options available to keep Scotland’s popular footpaths well maintained for local walkers and tourists alike."
"There are excellent examples of cooperative working by experts and volunteers to keep mountain footpaths in a state of good repair. ‘Fix the Fells’ in the Lake District offers an excellent model where a few experts can harness the enthusiasm and developing skills of volunteers to do some excellent repair and development work in the Lake District’s footpath network.
The use of volunteers doesn’t sit well with everyone. There are those who insist that this is real work and it should be done by a paid workforce. Scottish local authorities, who many would expect to undertake this work, have suffered well-reported cutbacks to funding. Mountain footpath maintenance does not feature highly on their ‘to-do’ list.
[The] ‘expert manager – volunteer worker’ model could work well in many places in Scotland and could potentially transform our mountain path network for the better and at the same time, develop the skills of young people to work in this important sector of Scotland’s economy. It’s not something that appeals to everyone but judging from last week’s turn out on Ben Vrackie and the response of the walkers going up the hill, it is needed and well appreciated by walkers who use our mountains.
The volunteers were or had been teachers, solicitors, mountain guides, oil industry workers. The list goes on. It is a great way of getting to meet people who share common interests whilst giving something back to our community at the same time."