Kirkby Stephen & District Walkers are Welcome
Category: Other
We have been an accredited Walkers are Welcome town since 2009. This means meeting the set criteria to show we welcome walkers, see https://walkersarewelcome.org.uk/
Our story https://walkersarewelcome.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/How-Kirby-Stephen-became-accredited.pdf
We monitor Public Rights of Way, recreation areas, permissive paths, disabled routes etc. and get involved with long distance trails.
We advertise the local area for walking whether you are passing through the town, visiting or a resident.
We are probably best known for our weekly Dawdles health walks, a one hour easy walk for residents which not only provides gentle exercise but also social contact. We run monthly health walks and occasional celebratory guided walks. We produce walk leaflets available at the Upper Eden Visitor Centre.
For more information, see: https://walkeden.org/
Where
Kirkby Stephen.
What are you most proud of?
Probably we are the most proud of our Dawdles walks which have helped so many people over the years from introducing new residents to the area to preventing isolation with a walk in company and a coffee whatever the weather. We also use car share to reach walks out of town.
It is a system that has since been adopted by The Ramblers and Council Active and Health Services. We additionally ask for a £1 donation which also gives us funding to cover insurance, expenses and to fund some of our other projects.
How did you get people involved?
This is detailed in our story referenced above but we generally asked people and organisations that we thought would be a good match.
What difference did the project make?
The project has formalised the welcome for walkers to our town rather than walkers that came that weren’t always welcome because it was thought they did not contribute much to the town’s economy. How wrong with a minimum of 5,000 Coast to Coast walkers alone seeking accommodation.
What do you wish you had known at the start?
That most of us would continue so long and what a success it has been.
What do you hope for the future of your project?
I guess this is one of the most difficult questions, year on year, where do we go from here? More of the same and try to look for new projects every year whilst continuing our year-to-year activities. This year we have a new walk leaflet coming out, some different walks for Westmorland Dales Festival and Heritage Open Days and adding walks to celebrate Railway 200 (200 years of the Stockton & Darlington Railway). Hopefully a couple of paths which we have been urging maintenance work will be done. Ask us in November how we have done.
It would be good to think that our example inspires other Eden small towns to become accredited to Welcome Walkers.