Gopsall Walk

The parish council have just received grant funding towards the Gopsall Walk project. The walk will use public footpaths and some public roads to connect the five villages which make up the parish: Barton in the Beans, Bilstone, Congerstone, Odstone and Shackerstone. It will be broadly a butterfly shape, with two loops meeting at Shackerstone.

The project will encourage people to walk, which is a key means of keeping them healthy and active, by providing good and clear information about what they will be able to see on the walk, and providing a clear route which they can rely upon. Since most of the walk will be on public footpaths it will protect users from exposure to traffic.

Apart from the benefits of walking as physical exercise, it is a known contributor to good mental health. The information provided on the interpretation panels will provide interest and encourage inquiry, a further contributor to good mental health.

The provision of historical and current information will enhance users' knowledge of the area and its history, and identify attractive features of their surroundings. This will support their sense of place and pride in the area, which is a significant contributor to their sense of the attractiveness of the area.

The walk will be a recreational facility for the Parish, Borough and anyone visiting the area. Information about the walk and the downloadable walk leaflet will be freely available on both the Parish Council () and Congerstone Village (http://congerstonevillage.co.uk/) websites.

The walk scheme will be shared with local tourism partners to promote local attractions. It is anticipated that local pubs, farm shops and the Shackerstone Railway with its café will benefit from users of the walk.

The project will enable the Parish Council to invest in local contractors and retain skills in our community.

The Gopsall Villages Walk will be distinguished by the fact that it is focused on a cluster of villages with common history as part of the Gopsall Hall Estate, with plentiful information about places of interest on the walk provided through the interpretation panels. It will thus play a quite different role for users from the longer distance routes.

Also, the scheme has been discussed with and is strongly supported by the project team which lead National Lottery Heritage Fund Project GP-16-05308 St Mary the Virgin, Congerstone: Restoring and sharing our heritage. The walk will complement and extend the heritage activities carried out as part of this project, by including on the information panels examples of the historical information relating to the Gopsall villages that was gathered during the project.

The project also fits very well with the Borough Council's Heritage Strategy, and its objectives to:
• increase our understanding and awareness of the borough's heritage with improved accessibility to the historic environment

• implement positive action and active management of the borough's heritage to ensure its conservation and enhancement

• enable an approach of partnership and collaboration where people, groups and communities come together to care for the borough's heritage

• celebrate and promote the borough's heritage and identity, allowing it to make a difference for people, groups and communities

The walk will link a range of heritage assets, including four Conservation areas and 24 Listed Buildings.