Hants. CC has shown its support for the ‘BN250’ project with a grant to enable much-needed improvements to the ‘Solent Way‘, as it climbs from Undershore to the Walhampton Monument. The award, under the Council’s Countryside Access Small Grants Scheme, is for nearly £4,000 which, when topped-up by the New Forest National Park Authority [the site lies within the National Park] and Lymington & Pennington Town Council and ‘match funding’ of Volunteer Labour, is worth a total of £7,700.
In recent years, this section of the ‘Solent Way‘ has become seriously overgrown and, for 6 months every year, has resembled the bed of a stream – hardly an encouragement to pedestrians to visit the Walhampton Monument or follow the flagship footpath to Buckler’s Hard, Beaulieu and beyond!
The footpath improvements are expected to be undertaken during the January – March quarter 2015 – as the work needs to be integrated with more extensive improvements to the overall Walhampton site. They will form an important element in the ‘BN250’ plans to restore the various Burrard Neale sites ahead of the Admiral’s ‘250th Birthday’ in September 2015.
