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00:00Good morning, once again, people of Somerset. It's Daniel Mumby here, your local democracy
00:06reporter. Hope you're all sufficiently recovered from the festivities over at the Glastonbury
00:11Festival. You join me in a different part of eastern Somerset today. Not Pelton, not
00:16Worthy Farm, but Froome. I'm standing on the retreat, a narrow residential cul-de-sac,
00:22a few minutes' walk away from Froome's railway station, and I've got a little four-legged
00:27friend with me if he wants to stay in shot. This is Lupin, as you may have seen on some
00:32of my other streams. Say hello, Lupin. And for the next 15 minutes or so, we're going
00:37to be walking down this stony track along the River Froome. You can just see the Edmund
00:42Park housing development looming over the other side of the riverbank. We're going to
00:46be walking from here along the boardwalk at the bottom of the old Printworks development
00:51and stopping around about there. I hope that we could go up alongside the Persimmon site,
00:55but although that section is technically fenced off from the development, it is so
01:01narrow and overgrown that I couldn't get through it a second time, having reconned it, without
01:07getting huge amounts of thorns and nettle stings. And also, I don't want Lupin getting
01:11hurt. So, for the next 15 minutes or so, we're going to be exploring this section of the
01:17paths along the River Froome. I should point out that although the boardwalk that we'll
01:21come to in about 5-10 minutes is on a public right-of-way, this section technically isn't,
01:28but it is in the process of being recognised as such. And the main reason that we're talking
01:33about this today and why we're out streaming here, aside from the fact that it's a great
01:37excuse to come out in one of Somerset's most characterful towns, is that Froome Town Council
01:44is pursuing, following a vote that happened earlier this month... Come on, Lupin, this
01:48way... They are pursuing action to purchase a large section of this land along the riverbank
01:55from the retreat down to the railway bridge, which we'll be coming to very shortly, with
02:00a view to putting this officially on the Somerset definitive rights-of-way map. Lupin is, in
02:07his typical fashion, wanting to sniff anything and everything and taking me away from my
02:11other phone, which has the statements on that I'll be reading out shortly. But essentially,
02:16although this is not a technical public right-of-way, it is regularly used by residents, we're not
02:22technically trespassing, and hopefully, once Somerset Council's rights-of-way team have
02:28an examination of it and send it up to the planning inspectorate in Bristol, this will
02:31officially be a public footpath, possibly even a cycle link, if they can get that linked
02:37up. So, a bit of context for what's happening. Back on the 12th of this month, so... What
02:44are we now? It's now the 1st of July. So, back on the 12th of June, Froom Town Council
02:50held a meeting in which there was a report published looking to purchase this section
02:55of land with a combination of crowdfunding and Froom Town Council's own budget. They
02:59reckon it will cost around £70,000 to secure this section of the river and then make some
03:05improvements to the surface. As you can see at the moment, it's largely stony underfoot,
03:11it's very overgrown, we are sort of in the shadow of various residential areas. I suppose
03:19you'd say it's naturally undergone rewilding, but that's a very kind way to put it, a very
03:27euphemistic one. So yes, they would hope to make some improvements over the coming years
03:31and then the future maintenance of the path would fall under the budget of Froom Town
03:35Council as part of their annual precept. So we spoke to Froom Town Council after that
03:42vote where the full council unanimously supported going forward with the purchase. It may take
03:48a little bit of time to actually complete in terms of due diligence and raising the
03:54money and everything else, but here's what they had to say. So this land is not fenced
03:58off and people do regularly access the land from both the retreat, which is where we started,
04:04and from the Network Rail boardwalk ending. Network Rail owns a little bit of the land
04:08under and either side of the railway bridge. It should be noted that there is an application
04:12to create this route as a public right of way that is being decided by Somerset Council.
04:18That's a statement from Froom Town Council there. In case you don't know what happens
04:23with public rights of way hearings, if you want to secure a footpath or a bridleway or
04:28anything along those lines, you have to make formal submissions to Somerset Council with
04:33evidence that the route is in regular use and that there are no land ownership issues.
04:39There is unfortunately a huge backlog of decisions. So you could put a planning request in for
04:46tomorrow and it might take months or even years to get a decision either way. And we're
04:52just pursuing it a leisurely route, which gives me a chance to show everything off to
04:57you because somebody wants to take his time today. We were recognising... It's a word
05:03I can never get my hands on. We were recognising this route in the opposite direction earlier
05:09this morning and Lupin didn't seem too interested. But all of a sudden now he's on camera, he's
05:13stopping at every bush and trying to eat anything that's not nailed down and keeping a close
05:18eye out that he doesn't eat anything that's bad for him. Thank you for your patience in
05:22Nevada. So the boardwalk that we'll come to was constructed by the Acorn Property Group
05:30as part of the old print work site of 159 homes off Caxton Road. Again, not far from
05:37the railway station. And that development is now being bordered by the Montgomery Place
05:43site of 25 homes being built by Persimmon on the old Cupronol factory. I mean, as much
05:50as we might grumble about new housing, at least both of those are brownfield sites.
05:56I'm sure the majority of Froome residents and people watching this stream would rather
06:00that those get developed first and foremost rather than finding new fields. As you can
06:06see, as we wander down closer to the river, we're not actually right next to the water
06:10at this point. Once we get to the boardwalk, that will be more visible. You can see that
06:16the path is narrow and cracked as it is. You can get through here very easily if you're
06:19able-bodied, but if I was walking with sticks or a zimmer frame, I think I would think twice
06:24and have to rely on the pavements to get the long way round. But it gives you an idea of
06:28where the starting point is. And once Froome Town Council have finished raising the money
06:34to purchase the land and worked their magic with some landscaping and putting in a harder
06:39surface path, I can see this being a very popular travel corridor from those new homes
06:45to the railway station and on to other parts of the town centre. I mentioned at the top
06:51of the stream that we're very close to the Edmund Park development on the other side
06:55of the river, and there is also the prospect with this aspirational project. Let me know
07:03in the comments. Having some signal troubles, we're just trying to take in all the natural
07:09beauty. So, Froome Town Council have told us that there is the possibility of funding
07:17that bridge using Section 106 money, that's developer contributions taken from the Edmund
07:25Park site, and the fact that Persimmon are also building on the other side of the river
07:28now, as we mentioned, on the Cooper and O'Rourke site, there is also the prospect of money
07:34coming from there as well, as we try and sort out these technical difficulties. Ah, we're
07:37back. Right, let me just turn around. We had a signal drop out just as we went under
07:43the bridge. Everyone now starts singing All Saints, or the Red Hot Chilli Peppers if you
07:48prefer their version. So, we have just come onto the boardwalk section. This is the bit
07:52that's already in place from the Acorn development, and you can see by the time we get this far
07:57down, we're right near the river, which is very still this morning. It doesn't look especially
08:03inviting, but again, that's a muggy day where it's just very hot overhead. It's not in its
08:08full glory, and there's plenty of large nettles around that I'm having to avoid. But essentially,
08:13this is the limit of the path as is, and then you have the network rail strip of land that
08:18goes under the bridge and slightly to the other side, and then the rest is the section
08:23that will lead up to the retreat. Now, Froome Town Council, in order to secure that route,
08:28will have to buy some land from network rail, and because network rail is responsible for
08:34such a large amount of land and property, those discussions again could take time. So,
08:41we will be keeping a close eye on this project as it unfolds. If you've only just joined
08:47me, thank you very much for bearing with me with the technical difficulties we've had
08:50this morning. It's Daniel Mumby, your local democracy reporter. I'm with my wonderful
08:54dog Lupin, who's very excited, and we are walking along the River Froome in the town
09:00of the same name on a muggy Monday morning, talking about Froome Town Council's plans
09:05to purchase land between the railway bridge that we've just passed and the retreat not
09:11far from the railway station, to complete this footpath along the River Froome to provide
09:17a safe pedestrian access from the new homes to the railway station and to the eastern
09:22most part of the town. Now, if you were following our live streams last year, when we were
09:29in Froome talking about the Northern Missing Links project, as we were heading out towards
09:33Great Elm and in the loose direction of Radstock, we talked a little bit about the Froome Missing
09:40Links group and what they're doing in terms of their work, but one of their projects,
09:45which is at a much earlier stage of development, is the Southern Link, which will eventually
09:51link the Edmund Park homes under the 361 and under the railway line with National
09:57Cycle Network Route 24 that goes all the way to Longleat. As the boardwalk section ends,
10:02you can see the existing footpath that stretches off down in that direction, and up in that
10:09direction there is the Acorn site and the Persimmon site. We're going to go a little
10:15closer just to put it into context, but like I say, we can't get all the way through to
10:21show you, not without putting Lupin in some jeopardy from nestles. There are no thistles,
10:28we're not in Scotland, but from nettles and sharp thorns, as I got stabbed by a few of
10:33those on the way down. Don't worry, I'm alright. Now, the town council has clarified that purchasing
10:41the land along the River Froome will not in and of itself allow that Southern Missing Link to
10:47Longleat to be delivered, but Froome Missing Links have nevertheless said they are in support of the
10:53project. It's an essential additional connection, if you like, as we come up under the homes at the
11:01bottom of the old print work site. You can see the last buildings just there. We are very close
11:07to the river now, as we head uphill, and particularly once the bridge across the river
11:14is delivered, then that makes discussions about that Southern Link more likely. I should also
11:21point out that the footpath from the boardwalk down to the west, it is accessible all the way
11:29to Feltham Lane and beyond, and in the not-too-distant future we'll be doing a stream looking at that
11:37route from here to the Selwood Garden community site, where 1,700 new homes are planned, and seeing
11:45how easy it will be to get from those homes walking along the river into the town centre.
11:50As you can see, by the proximity of all the Harris fencing and the overgrown shrubbery, we are right
11:59next to the old print work site on this side of the Harris fencing, and then if you look beyond,
12:06that is the Montgomery View Persimmon site, so I'm not going to risk going much further in this
12:13direction, and therefore we will leave our stream there. It's a little shorter, both in distance and
12:20duration, compared to last time, but hopefully this has been informative, and if you missed any
12:27part of the statements that we read out from the Town Council, they'll be available in the article
12:34that will follow this stream either later today or early tomorrow. In terms of future streams, I'm
12:39going to be at the General Election Count in Yeovil overnight on Thursday and Friday. There may be some
12:45live streaming when the results come in, depending on the timing and so forth and everything else
12:49that's going on. After that, I'm on leave for a week, so the next live stream proper probably won't
12:55be until around the middle of July. But in the meantime, thanks very much for your company this
13:00morning. I hope this has been informative. Thanks for putting up with all the technical problems.
13:03I've been Daniel Mumby, your local democracy reporter, and I hope you have a fantastic week,
13:09and don't forget to vote on Thursday. Bye for now.