Footpath repairs in the Brecon Beacons, Wales - 2010

The Brecon Beacons is a mountain range in South Wales with outstanding views, visited by around five million people each year. But where there are no stable, long-lasting footpaths in place, erosion is becoming an increasing problem. With no secure surface to walk on, walkers are often forced to veer off the paths – making them grow wider and wider, and causing damage to the surrounding landscape and vegetation, with the scars visible from miles away. The National Trust is working to arrest the decline and has embarked on an ambitious programme of footpath and erosion repair – skilled work that is completed by hand with tools and machinery having to be carried up the steep paths.

The JWCT contributed £500 in October 2010 to help repair the Brecon Beacon Footpath. The funding will contribute to the repair of a severely eroded part of the footpath known as Cefn cwm Ilwch which is close to The Dragons Claw, nicknamed by National Trust staff as the ridge looks like a dragon’s claw with three toes.

National Trust Access Warden Rob Reith said "we were delighted to hear about the donation made by The Jeremy Willson Charitable Trust to our project . . .  The work is programmed to start next year and we are raring to go!  It is a very inaccessible spot and some of the money that has been raised will go to providing some air support to get stone flown in to the worksite. We have a quarry identified nearby on the Beacons that will yield . . . stone for the work but the top of this path is just under the summit of Pen y Fan so its nearly 3,000ft high and very exposed. Access by wheeled machine will be difficult and slow. We have done other work on Pen y Fan and Crybin which has been as high and almost as inaccessible so we are confident that we can do it providing we have the finance and the volunteers!"

Liz Lowery, Trusts & Foundations Co-ordinator at the National Trust added “thank you . . . for your kind donation, the team in Wales were delighted to hear about it, and it really makes a difference.”

The contribution by Jeremy’s charity will be recorded in an In Memoriam book held at the National Trust property warden base at Dan y Gyrn, near Libanus, in the heart of the Brecon Beacons.

No reports available.