Way Marked Trails
From Mike Ford
Tuesday, 29 September 2015
Hebden Bridge and Mytholmroyd are designated Walkers are Welcome Towns and rightly so because of all the lovely walks within the area and the stunning views that these walks afford.
All are Way Marked in some way or other and very rarely are these Way Mark signs vandalised - except - for the Woodland Walk in Mytholmroyd. Starting on the canal side and going over Bridge 12 to Redacre Wood and then up through the - in springtime - Bluebells.
Follow the waymarks and this is the problem: someone is damaging or removing the signs, the white plastic waymark signs - they leave the Yellow/Black ones alone. We do not understand why this happens and appeal to anyone who can help us solve this mystery to contact this site or the Mytholmroyd Walkers Action on their Facebook page.
We are a Voluntary Group and finance is hard to find to keep replacing these signs as well as the volunteers' time and effort involved. Thanks,
Mytholmroyd Walkers Action.
From Andy G
Thursday, 5 November 2015
I led a Calderdale Ramblers' walk a week ago last Sunday from Hebden Bridge via Heptonstall, Colden, Long High Top, Hardcastle Crags, Midgehole and back to Hebden Bridge. We noticed that one or two of the black and white plastic waymarks in the Colden Valley and the Crags had been either wholly or partially torn off posts or trees which still had other waymarks attached to them.
While not wishing to make any accusations, I am aware that there is a certain degree of mutual antipathy between local walkers' groups and a hard core of mountain bikers who are illegally and recklessly riding on local footpaths, causing severe damage to the paths and danger to walkers using them. The vast majority of local mountain bikers respect the law and only ride on bridle paths and BOATS (Byways Open To All Traffic) - however the few that don't are causing problems for their fellow bikers as well as for walkers. I wonder if there could be any connection?
From Tim B
Thursday, 5 November 2015
Yes, it is a shame that at times there is a degree of hostility between different path users.
However it is not illegal to cycle on a footpath, it is a civil offence of trespass. The only person who can take action against cycling on a public footpath is the landowner who can sue for trespass/damages. Similarly if a footpath has been used by cyclists for twenty years or more without challenge from the landowner, bridleway or restricted byway rights may exist even if the maps still show the path as a footpath.
Developing a culture of respect for all other users would be much more helpful than petty removal of waymarkers or signs directed at one user group or another.
From Richard Peters
Thursday, 5 November 2015
The situation in Redacre Wood has nothing to do with bikers, there is a person who for some reason objects to the idea of children's' walks and/or making the woods more accessible.
CROWS has done quite a lot of work on the paths over the year and the work has been subject to quite a lot of vandalism. I would like to echo Mike's request, please tell us what the problem is and maybe we can go some way to dealing with it.
As someone has raised the whole issue of walkers v bikers again, can I say that CROWS has a project to waymark all the bridleways because at the moment they are very badly way-marked and many bikers are not sure where to go. We have produced a new design of waymark, making it clear that this route is for shared use.
We need to find funding for this project so if anyone has any ideas, or is interested in helping with the project, please get in touch.
From Gwen Goddard
Friday, 6 November 2015
Richard, this might be a project that Awards for All could fund. They gave a substantial grant to enable all that work you did on photographs of local flights of steps, the product of which is displayed for all to see in the café at Hardcastle Crags.
From Astra Jackman
Friday, 6 November 2015
I haven't seen the damage done to the Mytholmroyd markers and vandalism is usually down to human agents but when I lived and worked on a private estate in North Yorkshire we used pink, white, blue and yellow markers. For a good long while we thought some vindictive unknown so-and-so was continually shredding our white markers and occasionally our pink markers and leaving the rest unmolested. We wondered what strange vendetta could possibly be in perpetration by persons unseen. Until one of my colleagues spotted a jackdaw systematically trashing a newly replaced white marker and then flying 50 yards to start on the next one...!