Path Maintenance

On Monday Paul, Carl and Sam worked in the Churchwood woodland clearing a section of path that connects the university to St Chad's church. This pathway is used regularly by dog walkers, runners, and students amongst others to get from Headingley onto the campus. Over time the path has become muddy and boggy and is very difficult to pass through without wellington boots on.

As a quick solution when it has become so boggy, there has been mulch or wood chippings put down which then over time rots down and more has just been put on top. So to combat this in the meantime, the team dug up the pathway to get the level back down to the stone and rubble underneath all the detritus. They dug up the path on the campus side of the wall and also on the church side as that too had become very boggy with all the pedestrian traffic. It was a hard task to undertake as the build up of mud and old chippings had become sodden with water and so was heavy to move.

We saw the vicar when we were working down there and he told us that there had been a very kind donation to St Chad's Church of four large builders' bags of wood chippings. So he very generously said we could use these to create the path through from the church to the campus side.

A layer of wood chippings was spread out over the ground to create the new path and hopefully this will stop the area from becoming so muddy.

In the future when the area has dried out, we will hopefully put down some gravel or larger stones to create a better path. If we continue down the road of chippings, then these need to be replaced every year as they do just rot down to create the muddy paths of before. In the meantime this temporary fix should keep the area free from mud for quite awhile, much to the appreciation of the local dog walkers.


(Photos taken by myself on 25th January 2016)