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00:00A very good morning to you once again, people of Somerset. It's Daniel Mumby here, your
00:06local democracy reporter, and you join me near a railway bridge in the small village
00:11of Great Elm, just a few miles outside of Froome. I'm standing on Buckland Road, just
00:17under the Bucklands Railway Bridge, or just about to pass under there, and we are here
00:22to talk about cycling, and specifically the Froome Missing Links Project. I'm standing
00:27right now at the junction of Bucklands Road with the Colliers Way cycle route, which is
00:33part of the National Cycle Network Route 24. This runs all the way through the village
00:39of Kilmerston up into Radstock, and the idea of the Froome Missing Links Project, which
00:45we'll be exploring in a second, is to reconnect the town of Froome using multi-user paths
00:51with the National Cycle Network, both from the north and the south, eventually leading
00:55all the way to Longleat. I'm just going to walk over to this map right now to put it
01:00into context and to show you where we're going to be walking today. So, the Missing Links
01:04Project has been going for a number of years. It's involved with Sustrans, which is the
01:08government's transport charity, and you can see here with this blue line, this is where
01:12National Cycle Network starts going through the town centre into Froome, eventually coming
01:17out towards the Edmonds Park Estate. This is Phase 1, which was completed several years
01:23ago. This is Phase 3. I'll just pause whilst that pickup truck comes underneath. Phase
01:303, which we explored last summer with the help of Peter Aykroyd, who's been heavily
01:35involved in the project. That leads all the way up to the railway line. This is the future
01:39phase, which they are working on at the moment in terms of negotiating with Network Rail,
01:43because they'd have to get either over the railway line or around the surrounding land.
01:47But the bit we're going to be exploring today is this section in red, the Phase 2, which
01:51connects up with Colliers Way here, on the northern side of the railway line, and runs
01:57all the way to Elliot's Lane in the neighbouring hamlet of Hapsford. Interesting fact, incidentally,
02:03about the village of Great Elm. It is one of the few villages in Somerset not to have
02:07a parish council, because two years ago, they voted to get rid of it because nobody wanted
02:11to stand. Thankfully, we are ensuring that they are still represented. So, for the next
02:1620 minutes or so, we're going to be walking along this section here. Like I say, it's
02:19around 1.3km, or just under a mile, if my metric to Imperial is correct. We're going
02:25to be talking about the Missing Links project, and about this specific route. One of the
02:30reasons that we are exploring it is because they are currently crowdfunding to finish
02:37off Phase 2. The actual route itself, which was constructed with the help of volunteers,
02:45Apologies for that breaking signal. So, we're now on Phase 2 of the Missing Links, and you
02:51can see there is a kind of rough, stony surface currently in place, when this section was
02:58first created, and there is a gate that sort of serves as a natural barrier. We'll do the
03:05best we can. Sorry for dropping in and out. I was very surprised, actually. I arrived
03:11just at the Bucklands Bridge tunnel, under the railway, thinking I was going to be the
03:15only one parking up here, and within a few minutes of arriving, several families with
03:21bikes strapped to the back of their cars, pulled up, and so we had to delay the start
03:25of our stream, because we don't like filming children if we can help it. All kinds of safeguarding
03:31issues. Usual stuff. Thankfully, the families are really understanding. So, here's hoping
03:37that they'll have a lovely day. I think they were heading up in the Radstock direction
03:40and then coming back down to explore this, and if you have never been to this part of
03:45the Missing Links, maybe this will give you an idea of what to expect. So, let's give
03:51you a bit of background on Phase 2. So, several years ago, the volunteers involved with the
03:57Froome Missing Links project cleared away all the brambles on this part of the route,
04:02removed the old railway track and the concrete sleepers, and levelled off the ballast and
04:08built steps up the embankment. Now, aggregate has been put down, as you can see. It's a
04:14very loose surface, looser and much more chippy than you'd get on something like the Strawberry
04:20Line, where it's powdered stone that's been pressed into the ground on bitumen. It's perfectly
04:26possible to get a bicycle up here, or to walk if you're relatively able-bodied. A wheelchair?
04:31Passable, I would say, in warm weather like this, but in the winter, maybe a little less so.
04:39So, in order to bring this section of the path up to standard, as we move up you can see
04:48the section along here, where it joins up with the Collier's Way, and we're going to be heading
04:57along the railway line here, towards Hapsford. So, the aim is to get this entire section of
05:06around one and a half kilometres tarmac'd over, so that it's much smoother for everyone concerned.
05:15Like I say, once that is completed, bringing it up to the same standard of phases one and three
05:21of the project, all the attention can then turn to filling that last one and a half kilometres,
05:28which will join up between Hapsford and the northern edge of Froome. We will drop links
05:33in the description when the stream is over, talking about how you can get involved and
05:40putting the entire route into context. Now, they have launched a crowdfunder for this project,
05:49multi-user paths in Somerset have often relied on council funding to
05:55bring them up to scratch or get them built in the first place, but in this case
06:02it's a little bit more complicated. So,
06:08the Froome Missing Links project has currently been quoted, I'm reading directly from their
06:12crowdfunder here, so you know it's straight from the horse's mouth, they've been quoted £120,000
06:17to completely tarmac over this whole stretch, which as you can see is now predominantly an
06:23old railway ballast and rough stones. They have already secured two pledges of £50,000
06:31on the condition that the work is done by April next year, which means they only have to raise
06:37£20,000 to finish this bit off, and that is where you come in. So, they have launched a
06:44a crowdfunder page and they're asking for your donations, and we will of course
06:49put a link to that in the description. At the last way of looking, they've already raised £3,014
06:58of that remaining money, not including any gift aid, and there's just under 60 days left to donate,
07:04so if you live near Froome and want to take advantage of this route, or if you live near
07:09Radstock and want to enjoy a path straight through into the Froome area, or if you're
07:15experiencing this for the first time on this live streaming thing, you know what, I'd love to come
07:19and have a look at this, but it would be nice if it was smoother running. Please do consider
07:23chipping in a few quid, and like I say, if you are a UK taxpayer, and I imagine most of you who
07:28are watching are, don't forget the gift aid to add an extra 20% because the Froome Missing Links
07:35is a registered charity, and therefore they can claim gift aid back from the government.
07:41If you've only just joined me, it's Daniel Mumby here, your local democracy reporter. I'm in the
07:45wilds of eastern Somerset. We started our stream today from the tiny village of Great Elm,
07:51about a mile or so to the northwest of Froome. We're on one of the Froome Missing Links,
07:55this is the Phase 2, which runs currently from Great Elm to Hapsford,
08:01and we're walking from west to east. We started at the terminus of the Collier's Way,
08:07which forms part of National Cycle Network Route 24. We're running alongside the old
08:13freight railway line, there's no passenger services in this part of Somerset, at least
08:17none that I'm aware of, and we're exploring this entire stretch, which hopefully by the spring or
08:27summer of next year will be completely resurfaced and upgraded. You can see that the path is already
08:32wide enough to meet the Department for Transport guidelines, they say
08:36a multi-user path should be around three metres wide, so that you can have pedestrians, cyclists,
08:43mobility scooters and wheelchair users passing easily in other direction. I don't know whether
08:49this path allows horses, because it's a permissive path rather than a registered bridleway,
08:56but I look forward to being corrected on that if I'm mistaken.
09:00And it's also worth pointing out that the Froome Missing Link, it's not just about
09:05reconnecting Froome to Radstock and the surrounding villages,
09:09it's also part of a wider project called the Somerset Circle, which is intended to eventually
09:16deliver a complete 76 mile long loop of off-road multi-user paths across rural Somerset, taking in
09:25Bristol, Bath, Shepton Mallet, Cheddar, Wells, all the way up to Clevedon on the coast. Now a large
09:34section of that path, including the Bristol to Bath route, is already in place, about two-thirds of it
09:40is already finished. The last bits of it lie mainly on this side of Somerset, and you've
09:47probably been following our coverage of efforts to finish off the Strawberry Line, which will
09:52eventually run all the way from Yutton Railway Station to Shepton Mallet. We were out on the
09:59new stretch at Dulcote about a month or so ago, and if you follow the Strawberry Line Volunteers
10:06group on their Facebook page, you'll know they're hard at work on the last gaps between Wells and
10:12Shepton, with a new bridge going in over the B3136, and then they can turn their attention to the last
10:18tricky bits between Wells and Cheddar. All sorts of exciting work going on, a lot of it by hard-working
10:25volunteers who love walking in our exceptionally beautiful countryside, especially on a day like
10:30this. I mean, absolutely wonderful with the weather, and it's a wonderful way of getting people out
10:37so they can take advantage of this beauty and see more of the county for themselves.
10:44And funnily enough, it looks like we are already coming out onto Elliott's Lane. I'll just have to
10:52double check that we don't have too far to go. May well end up sitting on one of these delightful
10:58benches once we finish streaming. Now much like the Strawberry Line section that we explored a
11:05couple of months ago, this current section appears to end in the middle of nowhere, but
11:13the ambition is to reconnect from here up to the Phase 3, which currently finishes at the
11:23railway line. So we've come out here on Elliott's Lane. This obviously is not going to be a straight
11:29line right across the A362, which is a very busy road, but there are negotiations ongoing with the
11:35landowners with Network Rail looking at ways that they can finish off this stretch of around 1.3
11:40kilometres. And like I say, there are sections here which are a little overgrown and the current
11:47surface is rather rocky, but you certainly get the idea that eventually as we go up over the railway
11:53line once more, that this will eventually stretch all the way to Froome. And the on-road bits,
12:01the roads, okay they're country lanes, but they're relatively good in terms of visibility.
12:08It's relatively quiet even on a weekend like this. You can just see there's
12:12a beautiful church in the background and again if we look back where we've come,
12:17there is plenty of scope here for this section of the route to be finished off in good time.
12:23And then they can turn their attention to that last little piece of the puzzle
12:26taking us all the way into Froome. Well there we go, it's quite short and sweet today. We've
12:32only covered around one and a half kilometres, but hopefully this has given you an idea of the
12:37ambition that the Froome Missing Links team has and how you can get involved and help. We'll put
12:42links in the description to their crowdfunder. There'll also be a full report coming out early
12:47next week summarising the work that's been done so far and what happens next. If you have any
12:55comments or questions that I've not managed to get around to live, and apologies for the signal
13:00issues that we had early on, but we are in the middle of the Mendat Hills, it does happen,
13:04do drop a comment now and I'll get to as many of them as I can. But in the meantime,
13:08this is Daniel Mumby, your local democracy reporter, speaking from phase two of the Froome
13:14Missing Links, and I hope you have a fantastic rest of the day. Bye for now!