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COUNTRYSIDE HAS VITAL ROLE TO PLAY IN HELPING PEOPLE BECOME MORE HEALTHY

Cornwall’s countryside has a vital role to play in helping members of the public to become more physically active – this was the message given to members of the Cornwall Local Access Forum by a representative of a national sports organisation at their recent meeting.


Jonathan Calderbank, Development Manager at Sport England South West, told members that 5,200 people in the South West needed to become more active every month if the region was to meet the Government’s target of 70% of the population becoming physically active by 2020. Adding that a major problem was encouraging more people to continue to participate in sport after leaving school, he said organised and accompanied events such as ranger led walks would increase the numbers of people accessing the countryside.

He told members that funding had been provided for a number of initiatives to encourage and improve access to areas such as woodlands, including the Stithians Watersports Centre, sandchair provision for the Cornwall Disability Forum, cycle routes in the St Austell area and a walk to work active travel project in the Bodmin area.

Members also discussed the County Council’s Countryside Access Strategy and were given a progress report on Open Access, with the meeting agreeing that the Forum should request the Countryside Agency to extend to Access Management Grant Scheme. ,

Other items discussed included the latest report from the Bodmin Moor Working Group; a report into the background and objectives set out in the Common Agricultural Policy legislation and a bid from the County Council to the Countryside Agency for funding for a countywide project to provide a corridor for horse riding from the east to the west of the county.

The Forum also considered a report on plans to change the way modification orders are dealt with by the County Council in the future. The proposal would see priority given to order which were important to the network or related to most used areas.