A green scheme in Horndean has received a funding boost to expand its reach to residents and visitors.
East Hampshire District Council (EHDC) has given £12,000 to Horndean Parish Council (HPC), towards the village’s Green Trail and Heritage Network, which will create a series of footpaths and trails around the parish to encourage walking and cycling.
The aim of the scheme is to help highlight the village’s recreational routes, promote walking and cycling, and to connect people with heritage and nature within the parish and beyond.
Parish Councillor Andrew Redding for Downs Ward said: “We're delighted and it was the second grant, we'd already got an award from a Defra grant as well.
“To get success on both is great and gives us the opportunity to do some of the things that we want to do this year. It is very much a long term project and is going to take years to bring it to any sort of degree of completion.
“We've got to start somewhere and this gives us the capability to do that.”
The objectives and benefits of the project are:
- Opportunities for fitness and recreation
- Lifelong learning, through information boards and QR codes to educational websites
- Encourage residents to stay local
- Promote walking or cycling instead of driving
- Reduce Carbon Emissions and the use of vehicles for short journeys
- Bring existing Rights of Way back to a good, accessible standard
- Make Horndean’s natural and heritage assets including the Nature Reserves and SINCs available to all
Cllr Redding added that the EHDC funding will be used to install way-markers to help people find their way across the trail and to know where they are. In addition, information boards will be put up about the local area so people can learn as they explore.
“We want to highlight the fact that Horndean has a lot of footpaths,” Cllr Redding said. “I've lived here for 30 years, and there's a lot of it that I've only just discovered since I got involved in this project.
“The volunteers have been doing this job for quite a few years, where they go round and clear various sections of the area to try and keep them open. So it's about trying to publicise what we've already got and not just the green spaces as well.
“There's quite a bit of heritage in Horndean and we want to bring that in as the whole project develops. We really want to put Horndean on the map!”
Local MP Damian Hinds visited the village’s nature reserves late last year and commented on how beautiful they were and how the spaces were perfect for a walk.
The first part of the project funded by the Defra grant should be open to the public sometime in March. Plans are for an adventure trail in Catherington aimed at younger children, with an aim to make it pushchair friendly and feature tree sculptures by Michael Jones.
Visit the HPC website to find out more about the Horndean Green Trail and Heritage Network.