Cumbrian fell walk for Minister

Rural Affairs Minister Alun Michael is to walk up a Cumbrian fell on Monday morning to get an oversight into some of the problems of access to the countryside. Mr Michael, Minister of State for Rural Affairs at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, starts a day's visit to Cumbria by following part of the Pennine Way up Dufton Fell, in order to see illustrations on the ground of some of the issues he has come to talk about. His walk will take him to a point where the long-distance path meets the road leading to the weather station on Great Dun Fell. Accompanying him will be councillors and officers from Cumbria County Council and representatives of the Cumbria Local Access Forum. They will include County Councillor Duncan Fairbairn, one of the county council representatives on the forum, and the forum chair, Duncan Graham. 

Duncan Graham, chair of the local access forum, said: 

"We are delighted to see the minister in Cumbria and are pleased that he is looking at the issues to do with access in a part of the county which is not so well served in that respect as other areas, like the Lake District. We also appreciate the fact that he is prepared to put his boots on and see for himself what we are talking about when we discuss matters to do with countryside access." 

The walk is designed to enable the minister to talk about issues such as access to the countryside; the problems of increasing the number of footpaths in the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, an area which does not have a history of them; about erosion by walkers; management of footpaths; funding for improving access to the countryside; and exclusion orders under the Countryside Rights of Way Act 2000. A related issue, given the large part tourism plays in Cumbria, is the regeneration of the local economy in the wake of the foot-and-mouth outbreak in 2001, when footpaths were closed for a long period.