The work of Quorn’s two footpath wardens, Laurence Coe and
Richard Guise, has been boosted by Keith Collie and his group of
local Explorer Scouts (QWEST+), who walked two of the village’s
long, unpaved paths in the summer, collecting litter – and
other mess left by four-legged ramblers – as well as reporting
miscellaneous problems. The litter on Quorn’s paved paths is
collected by Charnwood Borough Council on a fortnightly schedule.
On the path from Tom Long’s Meadow up to Woodthorpe, the scouts
scooped nearly half a kilo of poop, and on the Buddon Brook path
a whole kilo. (Hope they cleaned the scales afterwards.) Please take
your dog’s waste home! Thanks to scouts Richard Mear, Jason
Hewitt, Gareth Locke, Jack Child, Keith Schou, Gareth Howells, Duncan
Key, David Tidmarsh and their leaders Keith, Ed and Katrina.
In the meantime, Laurence and Richard’s second quarterly tour
around the whole parish found that few of the problems reported in
the spring – mostly missing signs, broken stiles and gates – had
been resolved, and in fact the number of issues had increased from
25 to 32. However, representatives from the county council, which
is responsible for many of the issues, have recently visited Quorn
and assessed, for example, where waymarking is required to shepherd
walkers across the Epinal Way extension. The public path between
Barrow Road and Farley Way is one area almost completely devoid of
waymarking; another is the village centre, but here signage is expected
to improve with the ‘environmental enhancements’ scheme.
The Parish Council has applied for the formal ‘extinguishment’ of
the redundant – and unusable – section of a path near
Beacon View Farm that leads to a dead end at the by-pass.
Laurence, who monitors the paths to the south-west of the main road,
will be leading another ‘parish walk’ in the winter – keep
an eye on the parish noticeboard for details. Meanwhile Richard,
who monitors those to the north-east, is working on a series of leaflets
entitled Quorn Walks for the parish council – with the help
of a number of knowledgeable residents – and expects them to
be available in Spring 2004.
Scoop! More troops for the poop
