Mend Our Mountains: South Downs Way
One of the biggest projects ever supported by Mend Our Mountains has hit its huge fundraising target, enabling repairs to be made to badly damaged sections along the South Downs Way.
The whopping £120,000 raised by members of the public, businesses and charitable donors for the South Downs Way will enable vital improvements to be made to eroded sections of the 100 mile national trail across the rolling chalk hills of the South Downs.
Work is already underway to mend the most heavily damaged parts of the trail, with a section at Plumpton transformed from a muddy, waterlogged quagmire into a brand new weather-resistant path. Work to fix other damaged sections at Millpond Bottom in West Sussex and Old Winchester Hill in Hampshire will take place later this year.
The South Downs National Park Trust has coordinated local fundraising efforts under the banner of the 'Mend Our Way' appeal.
This in turn has been part of the broader 'Mend Our Mountains: Make One Million’ appeal, which is coordinated by the BMC and has raised around £650,000 for projects across Britain so far.
Momentum
The South Downs Way is an ancient track thought to have been used by people for around 8,000 years. Today around 20,000 visitors every year walk, cycle or ride its length, and millions more explore sections of the trail every year.
It crosses modest hills but it offers an enormous sense of space and escape amid the densely populated south east of England, and takes in the iconic chalk sea cliffs of the Seven Sisters and Beachy Head.
More projects supported by Mend Our Mountains are expected to hit their targets very soon, with work starting on a rolling basis through the spring and summer. Watch this space for more updates.
After the Bruntscar path on Whernside hit its £45,000 target last month, practical work started days later, with 130 tonnes of stone being airlifted to the site of the project and contractors getting stuck in to the work of repitching the path.
Thank you
“We want to say a huge thank you to each and every person who donated,” said Andy Gattiker, trail officer for the South Downs Way.
“When the appeal launched at the end of 2017, we knew people loved the South Downs Way and so were expecting a good response. But the community’s goodwill has far exceeded anybody’s expectations – it’s been phenomenal.”
Andy added: “Every single penny donated will go towards mending sections of the trail that had suffered the effects of erosion and mud over several decades.
WATCH: Mend the South Downs Way
“Fifteen thousand pairs of boots, 10,000 tyres and 800 hooves travelling the length of the trail each year certainly cause a lot of wear and tear!
“Our existing funding had allowed us to make most repairs but there were more remote sections of the path that were simply too expensive to tackle using existing funds.
“This additional funding, the benefits of which are already being seen, will make a huge difference to the long-term vitality of the trail and ensure it can be enjoyed for many generations to come.”
Partnership
Carey Davies, Mend our Mountains Campaign Lead, said: “We’re thrilled that the appeal for the South Downs Way has its target.
“This has been a great example of what can be achieved by working in partnership and coming together as a community.
“We all have a role to play in looking after these trails and it’s wonderful that this project will ensure the South Downs Way is safeguarded for everyone to enjoy for many years to come.
The £120,000 was raised from a mixture of public donations, crowdfunding, and a number of charitable donations, including from:
- Langham Brewery
- The Gerald Micklem Charitable Trust
- The Monument Trust
- The Chalk Cliff Trust
- Friends of the South Downs
- The Banister Charitable Trust
- Ian Askew Charitable Trust
- The Calleva Foundation
- HF Holiday
- Trail Riders Fellowship
- M J Camp Charitable Trust
- Players of the Peoples Postcode Lottery
- The BMC welcomes the new Skiddaw rewilding project in the Lake District
- Understanding Combined Liability Insurance | Club Support Webinar
- BMC Huts Seminar 2024
- CEO Update | September 2024
- Zoe Spriggins
- Roger Murray to step down as BMC Chair in November 2024
- Where to break your sport grade barrier abroad
- Safeguarding Surgery | Tuesday 1st October
- First ever litter pick on hard-to-reach Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) gullies
- BMC Members Forum
- Top 10 Via Ferratas in France, Italy and the UK
- Climbing ban lifted in Carn Gowla, Cornwall
- YHA Festival of Walking | Ambleside Social Walk (September)
- Review of BMC Huts Survey 2023
- Mend Our Mountains: BMC volunteers create 50m stepping stone path in Eryri (Snowdonia)
- BMC Annual Report 2023
- Essential Nutrients for Hill Walkers: Fuel Your Adventure with These Nutritious Snacks
- Working with Student Unions | Student Club Support Webinar
- Zoe Peetermans and Sam Butterworth Crowned 2024 British Boulder Champions
- Five reasons why you need BMC Travel Insurance
- BMC joins the UN’s Sports for Nature initiative
- Mend Our Mountains: meet ranger Caroline from Fix the Fells
- Medal success in Villars at the Paraclimbing European Championships
- Watch live: British Boulder Championships 2024
- How to climb the Breithorn
- Wilton Fest | Climbing Masterclasses with Steve McClure and Ian Dunn
- BMC announces GB Climbing Team for 2024 IFSC Youth World Championships in China
- Mend Our Mountains: BMC volunteers make repairs to 100m of Lake District footpath
- YHA Festival of Walking | The Sill, Hadrian's Wall Social Walk | (September)
- List of BMC Access Reps
- Building on a Golden Moment for British Climbing at the Paris 2024 Olympics
- Mend Our Mountains: could you organise a Get Stuck In footpath repair event?
- Mend Our Mountains: seventh project for 2024 - Haytor Rocks, Dartmoor
- Safeguarding Surgery | Tuesday 4th February
- Basic Safeguarding Training (Children) | Tuesday 12th November
- Paris 2024: McNeice Flying in Fifth
- Find a climbing wall
- Toby Roberts Takes Gold, Hamish McArthur Finishes Fifth
- Paris 2024: Women’s Lead Semifinal
- The Big Clean Up on Yr Wyddfa (Fully Booked)
- BMC statement in solidarity against UK Riots
- Olympic detox: best practice for bouldering on sandstone in Font, 70km south of Paris
- Paris 2024: Men’s Lead Semifinal
- Olympic detox: escape Paris for the nearby bouldering paradise of Font, by public transport
- Paris 2024: Women’s Boulder Semifinal
- CEO Update August 2024
- YHA Festival of Walking | Boggle Hole Social Walk (October)
- An update on the Member and Stakeholder Consultation on the GB Climbing Proposal
- The Climate Project: Sphagnum season starts again - can you help us plant this carbon-sequestering moss?
- Paris 2024: Men’s Boulder Semifinal
Related Content
Access News
The BMC volunteers have been super busy this summer, with the latest Get Stuck In project seeing 12 of them create a 50m length of stepping stone path to make a more sustainable way through the bog below Tryfan, Eryri (Snowdonia), North Wales.
Access Articles
If you're a BMC member or if you have made a donation to the BMC Access & Conservation Trust (ACT), you are directly supporting our Mend Our Mountains campaign which is funding Fix the Fells again this year. Your contributions enable rangers like Caroline Mercer to consistently repair and manage the Lake District paths that we love to walk on. We caught up with Caroline on a path above Derwent Water, near Keswick, to find out about a typical day in her life - it's pretty hard work!
Access News
This August, 14 BMC volunteers spent two days on The Band in Langdale, Lake District, making repairs to a 100m stretch of footpath in the latest Get Stuck In event, funded by the Mend Our Mountains campaign from the BMC's Access & Conservation Trust.
Access News
BMC member Roy Hammond from Congleton, Cheshire, has now volunteered seven times for Get Stuck In events, funded by the Mend Our Mountains 2024 campaign from the BMC's Access & Conservation Trust (ACT). This summer he stepped it up a notch and led the Get Stuck In Eryri event this June, coordinating a dozen volunteers who stayed in the Lincoln Mountaineering Hut in Deiniolen, North Wales. The group worked for 6 hours during both days, including a hike up to 750m on Glyder Fach on day one. We asked Roy what he gets out of volunteering on the Get Stuck In events for the BMC, and what it's like to start organising them himself.
Access News
The BMC’s Access & Conservation Trust (ACT) is pleased to announce a seventh project within the Mend Our Mountains campaign for 2024.
Hill Walking Articles
The dramatic skyline of the Great Ridge walk connects the summits of Lose Hill and Mam Tor in Derbyshire’s Hope Valley. Heavy footfall left the path in a badly eroded state and work to repair the damage to the path started in March this year, and has seen 500 metres of the most serious damage along the path repaired to protect the surrounding landscape and bordering habitat.
Hill Walking Articles
A kilometre-long stretch of one most heavily eroded footpaths in the heart of Bannau Brycheiniog (The Brecon Beacons) has been fixed, thanks to £12,100 of funding from the BMC’s Mend Our Mountains crowdfunding campaign.
Hill Walking Articles
England’s highest mountain has been a constant headache for its custodians, the National Trust and Fix the Fells, as ever-increasing numbers seek to top England’s highest summit. Yet a poignant anniversary has highlighted the continuing need for large-scale projects to repair and revamp its slopes and pathways.
Hill Walking Articles
In the last three years Eryri (Snowdonia) National Park Authority have been very active in working on a number of lower level bridleways around Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) and more recently started work on the bridleway connecting Capel Curig to Crafnant. While some of these trails have given opportunities to link communities and provide access to lesser-abled users, the scale and nature of the works on some of the routes that pass through some wild and remote areas has also surprised many users.
Hill Walking Articles
The money raised through the Mend Our Mountains: Make One Million appeal has started going into work on the ground, after a dramatic helicopter airlift helped path repair work to get underway on Yorkshire’s highest peak.
Access Articles
Commuting with crampons, hard outdoor labour, and spending 120 hours a week with your colleagues - we speak to a mountain path repairer to find out more about the highs and lows involved in this vital job.
Access Articles
Mend Our Mountains: Make One Million has helped leave a lasting legacy on some of the highest peaks not only in Scotland, but in the whole of the British Isles.
Hill Walking Articles
The Nuns Cross Path is used by more than 30,000 walkers and 10,000 mountain bikers, as well as horse riders, disabled ‘trampers’ and many others each year - it is a shining example of the accessible but wild landscape Dartmoor can be. But a combination of extreme weather, like the storms of winter 2014, and erosion damage had taken its toll over the years. In stepped the BMC's Mend Our Mountains campaign.
Access & Conservation
Seven things you always wanted to know about path repair (but were too afraid to ask)
Access Articles
If you're a BMC member or if you have made a donation to the BMC Access & Conservation Trust (ACT), you are directly supporting our Mend Our Mountains campaign which is funding Fix the Fells again this year. Your contributions enable rangers like Liam Prior to consistently repair and manage the Lake District paths that we love to walk on. We caught up with Liam on the very popular path up Scafell Pike from Wasdale Head to find out what a typical day in his life is like - it's quite demanding!
News
BMC volunteers from the Get Stuck In programme joined Fix the Fells last month in Wasdale on Lingmell Breast, one of the main routes up to Scafell Pike. They spent the day helping to maintain part of this hugely popular footpath up to England’s highest mountain.
News
Right now, this May, it’s National Hill Walking month, but not everyone finds it easy to access this hills, whether that’s due to physical, financial or knowledge-based barriers. That’s where the BMC’s Mend Our Mountains charity campaign comes in - this year funding a new Grants & Access officer for the Cotswolds Natural Landscape (formerly known as Cotswolds AONB). The newly appointed Nina Stubbington is now leading the ‘Access for All; Removing Barriers’ programme, improving access to the area for people of all ages, abilities and from all backgrounds.
News
The BMC’s volunteering arm, Get Stuck In, donated £1,500 to Fix the Fells this week to buy footpath repair tools to enable our teams to quite literally get stuck in to fixing the mountain footpaths in the Lake District.
News
The sphagnum-planting season has come to an end to allow the ground-nesting birds to, well, ground nest! Thank you to all the volunteers that have helped the BMC to plant over 16,000 plugs of this super soggy, carbon-locking moss this winter, helping to restore the Peak District peat bog.
News
Mend Our Mountains is back for 2024 with six incredible access and conservation projects across England and Wales. This project is funded by the BMC’s Access and Conservation Trust charity (ACT) and we would like to thank all our members, supporters and volunteers for making vital work like this possible. Here’s what is happening this year as a result of your funding, including volunteering events you can get involved with.