The appeal aims to raise £85,000 for path repairs on Scafell Pike. Photo: Bob Smith/grough
The British Mountaineering Council’s million-pound bid to raise cash for footpath repairs has passed the halfway mark.
The recent €30,000 grant from the European Outdoor Conservation Association for the Cut Gate ‘Bog of Doom’ has been added to the appeal.
The total for the year-long Mend Our Mountains: Make One Million now stands at £520,000.
An eight-week crowdfunding project run as part of the wider campaign closed on Monday, more than £30,000 short of its target. But the BMC said 2,752 supporters pledged £118,430, surpassing the 2016 campaign’s total by more than £14,000.
A BMC spokesperson said: “The BMC and the partners involved in all the projects would like to give a huge thanks to everyone who put their hands in their pockets to make a pledge, as well as the volunteers and supporters who did so much to raise awareness and drive fundraising.”
Two other Mend Our Mountains projects, Cadair Idris in Snowdonia and Beinn a’ Ghlò in the Cairngorms, are on the EOCA shortlist and could still receive funding in subsequent rounds of a public poll.
The wider Mend Our Mountains: Make One Million campaign will run until March next year. Thirteen projects across Britain’s national parks are due to benefit from the fundraising.
The BMC said the most ambitious projects within the appeal are on their way to being funded.
Each project within the appeal has its own fundraising target. The effort to repair the popular Brown Tongue route on Scafell Pike has a target of £100,000, of which £85,000 has been raised so far between the BMC and its partner Fix the Fells.
In conjunction with the South Downs national park, more than £90,000 has been raised towards the £120,000 repair of the South Downs Way, while erosion control on the Great Ridge in the Peak District national park has secured more than £80,000 of its £145,000 target, helped by a £40,000 donation from the Oglesby Charitable Trust and grassroots volunteer efforts.
After the EOCA vote, the campaign to repair the ‘Bog of Doom’ on Cut Gate in the Peak District, protecting important blanket peat bog in the process, now has about £41,000 of its £70,000 target secured, while Ben Vane in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs national park has reached about half of its £40,000 target.
Volunteer Richard Duckworth also undertook his ‘Dirty Dozen’ challenge, which involved walking all the projects featured in the campaign in a single push.
