Saturday 27 April 2013

Portrait Bench Opening Rearranged

The opening of the new portrait bench at Albert Village lake to commemorate the completion of the Connect 2 part of the Conkers Circuit will now take place at 12pm on Saturday May 11th.

New link on Facebook

In order to make our activities more accessible we have created a new Facebook page which will link in with the blog.

This will replace our old group page which was less accessible.  the link is:

Swadlincote & Beyond Sustrans Rangers

Update on signing in Burton & Milepost Check

Our geographic position means our area covers not only parts of Derbyshire but also Leicestershire and East Staffordshire, which covers Burton-on-Trent.  Whilst the traffic in Burton crawls around the town due to the roadworks, a small project is currently taking place to improve signing in Burton on Trent.

National Cycle Network (NCN) 63 is currently signed from the Derbyshire border in Stanton through to the junction of New Street and Orchard Street in Burton, then the signing stops.

We feel it is important to give our routes a definitive start and end so we debated whether to sign the route to Burton Station or to NCN64 by the Trent and Mersey Canal at Shobnall.  In the end we have chosen the latter option, with links to and from the railway station.

These links were trialled on a risk assessment ride and the preferred route was to use Milton Street rather than Mosley Street due to better visibility at the turn in point.

There are still a few signs to be replaced, but the project is nearly finished.  Once this is done we will contact the mapping department to ensure that the online mapping function is updated.

There are some pictures below to indicate some of the new signing along with photos of the 2 mileposts that have to be checked every 2 years.

For more on mileposts, see the below link on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Cycle_Network#Mileposts




Friday 26 April 2013

Update on NCN63 - Ashby Woulds Heritage Trail

On Monday 8th April work started on NCN63 on the edge of Donisthorpe Woodland Park.  As previously reported the surface has become covered over recent years and has turned muddy when wet.

Just 3 weeks into the project it is clear that the Community payback team are making a great job.  The surface of the path has been skimmed and the vegetation on the sides has been cut back.  Some materials may be required to fill in gaps but we are confident that the problems caused by the wet weather should be avoided this year.

Updates will follow....
Typical state in Spring 2013 after dry weather

State of NCN63 near Moira in early 2013


First Section after work by payback team
Further section after work


Looking back towards Donisthorpe after work