Footpath maintenance
The Thame & Wheatley area covers 35 parishes. Footpath maintenance work is managed in 22 parishes by the T&W group and by the Chiltern Society in the other 13. We aim to have Parish Path Wardens in all the parishes we manage. Our Footpath Maintenance team, under the leadership of Bob Merry, responds to requests to clear away vegetation (brambles, briar, blackthorn etc) using brushcutters, secateurs, loppers, pruning saws, bow saws and garden rakes. But the team has expanded into erecting waymark posts and metal fingerposts, carrying out stile repairs and installing stiles, steps, handholds / handrails and kissing gates with fence closures. To this end the tool kit now includes post hole digging tools, carpentry tools, a long reach electric trimmer as well as general tools.
The 4-member core team has carpentry/metalwork skills, but the whole team includes around 18 volunteers, of whom 6 are brushcutter trained and 1 is chainsaw trained. The team is supported with materials such as waymark posts, timber for stile work and postcrete from the OCC Sutton Farm Depot, while other consumables are provided by the T&W group.
In early May 2025 there was a PPW Training Day in Tiddington and an idea was put forward to replace several stiles with gates on the Oxfordshire Way where it passes through the village. It was almost a case of ‘no sooner said than done’ as by 6th June the T&W Path Maintenance Team had replaced three of the stiles with gates.
The
first stile was the most challenging as it required excavating 60cm deep post holes through broken concrete and v
ery hard dry soil. The second was a dream in comparison, possibly because it was located adjacent to ‘Sandy Lane’ so the excavation of the post hole through the sandy soil could be done easily with a double shovel. The biggest problem putting in the third gate was working in 34°C temperatures!
Later in the year T&W hosted a celebratory walk round Tiddington, passing through the three new gates. It included a ceremony with team leader Bob Merry cutting a ribbon to ‘open’ the new gate!