During the year 2021 the Vale Path Volunteers path maintenance team (VPV) has had one of its busiest years yet. Once restrictions were lifted in the Spring it has undertaken 16 path clearance projects throughout the Vale. It has cleared just over 8 kilometres of hedgerow or woodland and spent around 500 person work hours doing it. The team has the use of two brushcutters and a long pole petrol-engined hedge-cutter as well as a full range of hand tools.

The team continues to receive very good support from Arthur McEwan-James, Field Officer South-West of the Countryside Access Team. Arthur liaises with landowners before the team undertake path clearance on their land. He has also suggested paths for the team to work on and has himself spent the occasional work session with us. We have also received suggestions for paths to be cleared from walks leaders. This is a very important source of information.

During the year the VPV team celebrated its hundredth work session with a ceremonial cutting of a birthday cake. Fittingly it cleared a path on the outskirts of Abingdon which was one of its first projects undertaken in 2012.

Another interesting session was the provision of waymark posts to show the correct route of a PROW across the golf course at Shrivenham. This session followed up a request from Jane Archer, PPW for Shrivenham, who was concerned that the existing route used by walkers across the golf course was off-line and crossed a number of fairways. For this session we had the services of Arthur McEwan-James to ensure that the new route was absolutely on track.