Barnwell Country Park 2016

Improvement of Paths and Accessibility

As part of a continuous management programme, Northamptonshire County Council aims to improve all Paths and Access within the Park. However, there is very limited funding from central NCC funds to meet this aim.

The Friends recognise that, if we wish to continue to improve and, for that matter, maintain our Park, the burden for doing so will increasingly be placed on us as users who enjoy and make the most of the Park.

Improving Access to All meets two of our core Aims:

• Interest & Conservation: To encourage active interest in the conservation and habitat within the Park by raising awareness of its environmental resources to the local and wider community of users;
• Broaden Uses & Social Inclusion: To improve, maintain and extend understanding of the Park for the broadest social benefit of the community of current and new users whilst ensuring mutual respect and support for all and an ongoing commitment to increase awareness of the benefits of the Park.

We will continuously review our commitment to these aims by initiating a rolling annual programme of activity and contribution with specific focus on improvement projects. These initiatives may be in the form of funded projects or direct activity in our Park like, for example, the now established Wednesday morning Volunteer Group.

For 2016, we aim to ensure sufficient funds are available for North Lake Path to be completely hard surfaced. The final 500m of the North Lake Path will have an all-weather surface providing all users, including those with limited mobility and parents with push chairs, all year round access to 80% of the Park.

This project therefore meets both:

• Interest & Conservation: we are opening up all year round access to parts of the Park not hitherto capable of being used by everyone during Winter months; and
• Broaden Uses & Social Inclusion: we are ensuring that limited mobility users and those using push chairs have access to an area of the Park they have been unable to use.

We are continually looking for fresh ideas and seeking to identify needs that users feel would increase their use and enjoyment of the Park. Please contact us with your ideas or speak to our Rangers.

If you are interested in helping us with the funding and therefore the construction of an all-weather surface for the North Lake Path, please follow this link: North Lake Path Project.