UKC

Thursday saw the launch of an ambitious new campaign that aims not only to raise money for path repairs on one of Scotland's best-known hills, but to begin a wider conversation around the need for investment to maintain upland trails, and about how this ought to be paid for.

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"We no longer have access to European funding, which has provided significant support for path and habitat restoration projects in the past, with no funding from the government to replace it."

The gift that keeps on giving.

Interesting. I'd be keen to know what/ whether their stance is on making paths MTB friendly versus asking for money from bikers.

( talking here about massive waterbars and in particular the specifically designed doubledrop waterbars that were in vogue a few years ago)

Obviously making Mtb friendly waterbars is slightly more expensive, and thus understandably  not high on their list of priorities.

But on the other hand, I would be loathe to give money to a group that was designing out mtbs.

(This is a general observation, not specific to this path or this organisation.)

That's a good question, I'll ask them.

If you design-in for MTB then do you also have to account for an increase in erosion, and a different sort of erosion than you'd get from footfall? Would a multi-use hill path be built differently?

I'm thinking of loose chip surfaces being worn down, or those tyre scores you see on soft ground that seem to act as water channels for runoff (more damage per bike than a set of footprints?).

Are hill paths more a walker concern because they are the primary infrastructure for walking in the hills? Whereas MTB-ers already have lots of trail centres, and thousands of miles of gravel estate tracks that are better by bike than on foot. For bikers, is going up hills a minority activity and thus less of a consideration in the scheme of things?

Not sure what I think about any of this. Guess my principle would be the hills are for everyone non-motorised, so long as they're not doing more than their fair share of damage. But I really don't know to what extent we ought to account for two wheels when maintaining hill paths: there's got to be a conversation in there.  

I would donate, but will not be offering a penny while Cambert McPish has any involvement whatsoever.  An exceptional poor choice to have such a divisive individual as a figure head. 
 

Furthermore it’s an incredibly ironic choice, given that McPish undermined the SMTs Munro and Corbett guide book sales by producing his own titles for personal profit. The SMT donates a large proportion of its sales proceeds to upland footpath repairs. So McPhish is indirectly/directly responsible for reduced footpath funding as a result of personal gain, as well as popularisation resulting in wear and tear.

On the cost side of the equation volunteer organisations certainly used to be used a lot. I know because I did path maintenance with the BTCV in the Lakes (now just TCV) for a couple of years. The NP (and I think the NT) would use the BTCV as cheap contractors. Plenty of people were willing to actually pay to do it on conservation holidays.

The SMT is the charitable side of the SMC.  Mountaineering Scotland is not the same as the Scottish Mountaineering Club.

This is also a remarkable view of things:

The Oats chief executive, Dougie Baird, said: “Hill-walking is generally a … pursuit of folk who are reasonably moneyed, and [given] what people are prepared to pay for a jacket or a rucksack, I would imagine a keen hill-goer or mountaineer is probably wearing a couple of grand on his back, with a £30 grand car in the car park.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/moneyed-hill-walkers-urged-help-180000295.html

Could you elaborate on which bit is remarkable?

New paragraph/

It's an interesting argument. I'd be quite happy to pay towards path maintenance if it were done properly.  Seems kinda obvious..... but then whattabout all the other myriad things that *are* paid out of taxation and aren't used by everyone.... are there childless rambling enthusiasts in those areas who don't drive much, never use ports and airports who wonder why their wants aren't supported but others' are?

A realists point of view! I had a meeting at probably the most popular cliff in southern Germany to discuss a rebolting project. The guy from the DAV said he had a budget of €500 and how hard it was to get funding to which I replied "a third of the cost of one of the alloys on that Porsche there, not to mention the couple of million worth of other cars in the parking area, I expect they carried their Patagonia jackets to the cliff in their Gregory rucksacks".

The car-price thing (which also seems to ignore folk who use public transport to get to the hills), the gear-price thing, and also there apparently being no women who are keen to climb hills.

Someone has started a thread making the same point across on Walkhighlands:
https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=118563

If we are talking about visitors to An Teallach it's just exaggerated, but the principle holds true if you divide by two or three. I've always despaired at the parsimoniousness of some climbers and mountaineers who think our paths maintain themselves, will bemoan the cost of a campsite, guidebook, parking or extra cost of an independent equipment shop, whilst being very comfortable financially.  Driving vehicles of a value often well over £10k, on long journeys costing hundreds of pounds of fuel, using kit worth thousands (sometimes even a jacket worth near £1k)... a situation not affordable by much of the population. Volunteering, donating, supporting quality (true value for money) are not as well enabled as they should be by a signifcant fraction of the wealthier middle classes, in contrast with some incredibly generous people who give plenty despite not having much.

A lot of principles hold true if you divide by two or three! But that's not what the guy said.

There are plenty of hillgoers who are not very comfortable financially.

It shouldn’t be up to a vague « us ». Tourist tax on NC500 and the likes should go towards what they advertise.

I don’t necessarily object to contribute btw, in the same way that I pay my taxes without grumbling. I use services, so I pay for them. I will contribute though I spend most of my time outwith paths. I do, however, object to the systematic passing the buck to the individuals  (like water sewer spillage…).

Yup, not everyone's turning up in a 30k motor, myself included! Seems a narrow minded view of who accesses the outdoors, given all the chat about widening participation and diversity 

Indeed. As I said to the better half this morning, who knew that our battered old Polo with 128k on the clock was worth so much? And I'm not sure when I last bought a new hill jacket - mid-1990s, maybe.

And the better half made exactly that comment earlier, too. That's not to say there aren't "moneyed" folk around the hill scene - eg the hardcore bagging crowd, chasing down the UK-wide lists such as Marilyn and Humps, are enjoying what is in considerable part a driving activity, and that doesn't come cheap. But the general mishmash of ordinary hill folk, many of them staying pretty local to where they live and endlessly repeating stuff, aren't like that.

I  also drive a slightly battered car, with over 100k on the clock, but am financially comfortable.

Poor people driving battered high mileage cars to go and climb An Teallach (from most of the UK) could become an adventure in itself!

I recognise lots of poorer hillwalkers are walking extensively from where they live or can easily reach on public transport but I thought this trust is focussing on paths to important mountains in Scotland, outside National Parks, where past access to EU funding has now gone.

I'm not really disputing the general point (although I'd be interested to see stats on how often tightly pitched/stepped hill paths have contributed to accidents), it's just what the chap has said seems clueless and counterproductive to the cause he's trying to support - not very PR-savvy, to say the least. As NickyRannoch says on the Walkhighlands version of this discussion: "I'm happy to make a contribution to a campaign to improve hill paths but this piece of idiocy has become the story."

(There's also the PR own goal aspect of McNeish being the public face of the campaign, as ScraggyGoat says upthread, but that's a different story really.)

This is clearly balls but I think even impecunious walkers would cough up a few bob if there was a carefully targeted load of collection jars in cafes, visitor centres etc. Suitably begging messaging would make us hill goers feel it would be rude not to contribute; which it is.

Good read ... I enjoyed it & the comments .. but it got me thinking.

#1 I'll be honest - I have limited sympathy for funding anything upon privately owned land.  I consider owners of land, particularly in Scotland, to be current "custodians" the dictionary definition of which means - guards and protects or maintains.  There are good custodians of the land in Scotland, some of whom have admirable objectives - not all fit that bill however.  I would be inclined to investigate putting a duty of care upon the custodians of the land to maintain it OR require them to pass the land onto a custodian who is willing to.  That will come with the need for the custodians of the land to find means to pay for that upkeep - see #3 - and I am willing to support them to do so with appropriate guard rails in place.  (this is basically a variation PES - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_for_ecosystem_services)

#2 We can pretend it is not the case - but it is:  Irrespective of whether you walk, run, climb, ride or paddle in our outdoor environment (add your own outdoor activity HERE) ... these are games for those will disposable income.  I am quite sure that some of you will seek to demonstrate examples to the contrary - but they are the exceptions not the rule.  These activities need both time off and disposable income to participate.  The less well off in our societies simply do not have either of the prerequisites necessary to join in.  The diversity drives will chip away at this  .. but they will not change this underlying fact.  Case and point:  Let's imagine you wanted you want to become a whitewater kayaker in Scotland - you would need:  A car, roof rack, kayak rack, whitewater boat (likely more than 1x), paddle (often more than 1x), buoyancy bags, helmet, PFD, boots, dry suit, throw line, leash, ear plugs ... plus more often than not the lessons necessary to get you going.  These games we play in the outdoor are inherently expensive to participate in if you want to leave the tourist spots served by public transport and get off anything but a maintained path.

#3 In the UK/Scotland we have this bizarre obsession with the outdoors needing to be entirely free - a similar mindset is there in the UK's wider conservation model.  We're happy to spend vast sums on the kit necessary to play the game .. but then want to use the environment for free.  (I also see a similar mindset in the vanlife idea)  When we look outside of the UK we often find that there are other models that could and do work.  I am not suggesting they are better or worse than the UK - but I am suggesting that they do work.  The alps have been monetized through the uplifts and in the US has gated some their national park infrastructure.  The UK model means we never have money to maintain anything ... everything is in a slow steady state of disrepair and we're always scraping together the bare minimum.  It doesn't HAVE to be this way ... this is a choice that we've made as a nation to operate like this and it's a choice that we could undo if we wanted to.

It leads to the question of "is there a better way to do this?"  The campaign is admirable but the article calls out the real problem - their is no sustainable funding model to maintain our playgrounds.

Examples that could be investigated include:

1. The US national park model - often gated and you need to pay a fee to get in.  Think Yosemite.
2. Pay to play - We could build car parks in our area of national beauty and enforce appropriate parking charges.  (and not let them be operated by local councils!!)
3. You could fund them from general taxation ... but the problem here is that it puts the burden onto persons who do not necessarily benefit from mountains.  (Plus general taxation taxes income not wealth and the rich are amazing good at having zero income and hence paying almost zero tax)
4. Innovative finance options would be welcome i.e. Interest free government backed loans for conservation work.
5. The national trust does well out of a historic drive to have members bequeath money too them upon their passing.
6. Green bonds work ... 

One day we need to need have a larger conversation about conservation in the UK.  While I am not suggesting that I have the answer ... I don't believe that our current model works.

(I am sure some people will whack me for the comments ... fire away.  )

Interesting thoughts, and this is definitely a conversation that is being had. Here's an example of user-pays, announced today: 

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/news/2023/06/new_car_park_for_beinn_a_ghlo_pr... 

You are also forgetting that those that seek to exploit these areas for personal gain, by incessant promoting them, which in turn results in the increasing need for management, repair and upkeep should not have their impact overlooked.

Hence my comment about the irony of Cambert McPish being the figure head, he should be paying for the whole of the An Tellach path personally, as over the past three decades I’d warrant that is the equivalent that the SMT could have invested in paths if it wasn’t for his actions.

£5 per day for a car sounds reasonable.  In many cases you'll have 2x in the car ... £2.50pp.  Worst case scenario you make the coffee at home and stick it in a vacuum flask rather than buying a latte on route and you're even again.

As I said above ... the UK needs to break with this cake and eat it concept.  "We want carpark at the top of the trailhead.  The carparks need to be clean, safe and pothole free.  We want maintained trails on the mountains.  We need to deal with the toilet situation.  Vans need to park up for free anywhere they want.  But hell NO - we don't want to pay for any of this - it all needs to be free!"  It is a low cost & low investment model.  No one pays - but no one gets good facilities either - many of our services are in a state of disrepair.  We can't have it both ways.  This isn't just our Outdoor environment - it's UK PLC modus operandi. 

NHS aside - too often our go-to solution for all problems is "we need more general taxation to pay for more stuff free at the point of use".  But general taxation doesn't tax the rich.  General taxation generally means we'll take more off the middle & lower classes.  As I said above though - the vast majority of the UK doesn't use our outdoor environment.  60M in the UK ... there aren't 60M regular Munro baggers.  

I am supportive of, amongst other things, those who use our outdoors paying more directly for that privilege but that that money generated is used directly to support the mountains/outdoor environment and not frittered away into "other" initiatives.  If I have to make my coffee at home to enable that ... that's a cost I'm happy to saddle - at least my money is going directly where I want it to go.  

(Appreciate I'm way OT now.  Sorry.)