Temporary Warnings
I reviewed Lickin today (Lichfield to Kings Bromley) there were two sections that were temporarily closed but due to reopen in June. Bishops Walk in Lichfield has been closed by the District Council for 6 months and a section of the footpath south of Kings Bromley Marina has been closed by HS2 (although I was able to walk through under the watch of security). The thing is when they are open they are part of the best possible Slow Way so there's nothing to be gained by designing a new route avoiding them. Is there any scope to have something on the route page (a bit like with roadworks) to advise people to avoid them temporarily giving details and timescale?
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Should I say rather than "nothing to be gained designing a route avoiding them" as new routes are always welcome, "nothing to be gained ditching the route which includes them"
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I have been looking at similar issues within out rambles area and the main issue with specific warnings that we are facing is the work to make sure that are kept up to date including being removed when the path is open - and identifying who will take this on and how they are informed of a new issue or the change / resolution of an existing one. Another option we are looking is to include links to the relevant sites for the local highway authority and other bodies so people can click on the links and check for themselves. But I agree this is important information.
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Would a mandatory expiry date when submitting a warning be a possible way to help with the admin of this?
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Yes it would. You will still need someone keeping an out for any future closures / diversions or rely on the first person to come across a problem to note it - but they would then need to check to see when the closure ends. We also have a situations where a 6 month closure notice is issued and at some time (or several times) within that 6 months the path would be closed and open at others and these details can be found on the highway authority site. It certainly would be good if someone is aware of an issue to be able to note it somewhere against the route and, also, I think links on the Slow ways sites to the highway authorities or at least a comment to recommend people check the sites of their local authority would make sense.
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A mandatory expiry date wouldn’t help for situations where such restrictions are not temporary, but where the availability will come and go.
Example:
A path in a tidal area
A path across MOD land which has access but can be closed.
I think:
1) Ask for a link to the information (if available), or a photo of the signage (if available).
2) Ask for a paragraph about the restriction (with some presets options)
a) ‘a temporary restriction for maintenance, with no access likely until <June 2022>’ — the latter being a field to fill in… before that date, route is red, then goes yellow…. Returns to normal when re-surveyed.
b) ‘maintenance is scheduled until <fill in>, which may restrict the route, but there are it can be bypassed’ in this case, ask for extra details of the bypass.
c) ‘occasional access restrictions: there are times when this route is not passable. This is because <reason>’ (e.g. MOD land etc)…. This should cause the route to appear with a caution if selected - and should maybe link to ‘suggested alternate’ on slowways site if available.0 -
I checked a route today (as someone new to this) and discovered an immediate problem with a route that I am familiar with. The route follows the south shore of a river and crosses to the north shore via a bridge that has been closed to the public pending repairs. I wanted to post a "warning" but could not find how to do this. The bridge will be out of action for many months (unless the powers deem it safe enough to use pending repairs). There is a definite need to be able to post potential route problems (with a posting date) like this. A free format box to supply the information would be good. Also, maybe it might be worthwhile archiving reported problems so that they could be displayed if requested?
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I had this problem this week.
I ended the route and continued with a new modified route to get to the settlement. I also added the closure details in the review, and gave it two stars (I give one star to permanent closures).
I’ll create the new route differently next time (I’ll upload the new GPX route without photos and will create a new survey for the route), but I’m confident that people will still be able to get from point A to point B.
see Borsan - Borrowash to Sandiacre (both routes) to see how I did it.
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