Footpaths & Bridleways

 A few lines to bring you up to date with what is happening with our footpaths and bridleways.

The first thing is that it is absolutely brilliant so many of you are using the lockdown to get your permitted exercise enjoying our footpaths. We all know that it is a bit muddy but please keep to the paths to avoid trampling farmers crops. 

Greening Chinnor, working with Oxfordshire County Council (OCC), Chinnor Parish Council (CPC) and the Chiltern Society (CS), have been regularly checking all of our local network of paths and bridleways with a view to getting essential repairs and improvements done. You may have noticed that decrepit stiles have started to be replaced with nice pedestrian and canine friendly gates and that an extensive programme of improving waymark discs is underway. We have recently been given a generous grant from CPC towards these improvements.

Last year, together with OCC and the Chiltern Society, a major proposal for replacing all broken and unusable stiles around Emmington was put together. We are delighted that the Trust for Oxfordshire’s Environment (TOE) approved this proposal and made a significant grant that enabled all of the gates and associated kit to be purchased ready for installation by the South Chilterns Path Maintenance Volunteers who are the group that carry out much of this major work. Unfortunately, due to current restrictions they are unable to get out and get this work done. Moving forward there is another major proposal with TOE for necessary works around Henton.

We’re pleased the list of outstanding issues continues to drop significantly. An example of an issue is a broken stile and a report is an individual member of the public recording the issue on the OCC online database.

A couple of requests: First to dog walkers please carry on cleaning up after your charge and continue to dispose of the bags responsibly and to all cyclists please make sure you do not cycle on footpaths (marked with a yellow waymark). You can use them but please dismount and push your bike until you meet a bridleway. 

Here's an interesting volunteering opportunity

Volunteers wanted for pioneer Chilterns headwater Study - 'Water in a Dry Landscape'

If you are interested in the springs and streams of the Chilterns and can commit to helping with quarterly water-quality surveys, the Chilterns Conservation Board (CCB) would like to hear from you.

The CCB has been awarded Heritage Lottery Funding for a major series of projects, including ‘Water in a Dry Landscape’ (WDL). In recent years, a lot of attention has been given to the chalk streams of the dip slope – rivers such as the Chess and the Misbourne – but the springs, headwaters and streams draining the scarp slope have been largely overlooked and under-appreciated. WDL, with your help, will change that.

Volunteers, are needed to work in small teams carrying out water quality surveys at up to 8 sites four times over the course of a year. Equipment and training will be provided. The data arising will be used to identify the best aquatic sites on the scarp. These will then be surveyed by specialists for their flora and fauna. Your survey results will also help to identify locations for practical works to improve biodiversity and water quality.

So, if you would like to be part of this ground-breaking study discovering the hidden value of the Chilterns’ springs and streams, please get in touch with Mike Furness, who is co-ordinating the project on behalf of CCB (mfurness@chilternsaonb.org, 07422 501619).

The survey period is expected to run from August 2019 to June 2020. Training is planned for 20th July (morning) at Wendover and 25th July (evening) in Princes Risborough. In total, more than forty sites will be studied by five teams of volunteer surveyors, who will be using the equipment provided to assess a range of parameters on site, reporting the data back to Mike for collation and analysis.

No special skills are needed as full training will be given, but you will need to be able to get to some remote locations, sometimes involving a bit of a walk, and CCB would like you to commit, as far as is possible, to all four survey rounds.

If this sounds like you, please contact Mike on mfurness@chilternsaonb.org or call him on 07422 501619.

Donkey Lane Community Orchard

Our extremely well attended open meeting was held on Wednesday 21st November and such is the level of interest from the Community, we have organised two site visits during the early part of December.

Once these have taken place we will be setting up a small management group in order to progress this exciting project. 

In the background all of the legalities, finance, training and administrative tasks are progressing nicely. The plan is to start clearing the immense amount of rubbish and brambles once we are into the New Year. 

As we believe that there are some significant heritage varieties to be found there, we are approaching this task with great care and sensitivity to ensure that any ‘at risk’ trees are stabilised. 

We will be calling for volunteers once we get started. However if you would rather help with publicity and planning rather than getting your hands dirty please contact us.

A copy of the meeting notes together with a copy of our aims for the orchard can be found here

Donkey Lane Community Orchard

Greening Chinnor are delighted to announce that we are working with Mr Derek Nixey, Chinnor Parish Council and The Chiltern Conservation Board to regenerate and restore the old, overgrown orchard in Donkey Lane.

Our aim is to restore the orchard to be a viable and shared community area. Not only are we looking at restoration but also about finding out and recording the habitat, wildlife and social history of the site. To enable this exiting project to get off the ground, we are looking for volunteers to help process the project.

We are holding an open general meeting on Wednesday 21 November in the White's Field Community Hall at 7:30 pm. To find out more come along and see what we’re planning. Light refreshments will be served.

PLEASE NOTE NEW VENUE!