Sports, Culture and Leisure

Slow Ways

We are delighted to invite your council to contribute to the creation of Slow Ways - an ambitious crowd-sourced, community-verified national walking network that connects all of Britain’s towns, cities and national parks.

Boosting walking and wheeling remains a top priority for all councils. Slow Ways is a great resource to help you achieve that goal.

Supported by the National Lottery Community Fund, our mission is to make it easier for people to walk and wheel between places. Having a network of recommended and trusted routes is key to unlocking this - and you have the power to help.

Contributing to the Slow Ways walking network will help your council and community across multiple agendas including:

• Health and wellbeing 
• Connecting people and communities
• The Climate Emergency
• Active Travel                               
• Tourism, Leisure, Culture, Heritage
• Accessing Nature
• Planning
• Levelling Up
• Cost of Living
• Happiness and joy

 

Citizens from across the country have already drafted 9,000 routes that stretch for over 130,000km (80,000 miles).

Now these routes need checking on the ground to make sure they are good enough for people to follow. Councils are uniquely positioned to help with that challenge.

So far 1 in 5 Slow Ways have been checked and verified by people across the country. This is an incredible collective achievement.

We now need your help to scale-up our national effort and verify the whole the network. Each route requires at least three positive reviews and a survey for it to become part of the Slow Ways trusted network.  

The aim is for every place in the network to be 100% checked. Once that’s happened we’ll have jointly created a national network that everyone can use. Every place in the network has a place page like Kimberley does, why not search for a local town here to see how it’s getting on?

Will your council help check your local part of the network?

Learn more - Download our toolkit to discover how and why to help.

Walk the walk - Choose a suitable route from the Slow Ways website or iPhone app, walk it and then leave a review. You can do this on your own or better still, organise a day for the wider community or Parish to walk all of the Slow Ways in your area.

Share this message - Do you know people or groups in your council or community who would like to get involved? Please share this opportunity by forwarding this message and posting it online and in newsletters.

Add Slow Ways to your next meeting - Discuss how your council can help to get your local routes verified and surveyed.

Stay in the loop - Would you like to be kept up to date with the progress of Slow Ways? Sign up for the Friends of Slow Ways newsletter.

Councils have extraordinary collective potential to come together to make a big difference to this incredible national effort.

To find out more information please visit the Slow Ways website.

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Please check out this event taking place at the Festival Drayton Centre on Wednesday 25th October 2023

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Time to get walking again!

With Spring on its way we start to think about getting out to walk in the beautiful English Countryside again, but where to find new and interesting walks?

Walking in Shropshire https://www.walkinginengland.co.uk/shropshire has loads of walks to download and print, free, it also has books of walks, details of all the walking groups in the county and much more. Whether you want to walk on your own or with a group all the information is there in one place.

John Harris (who maintains the website) said ‘There is so much walking information on the web but it is difficult to find. Walking in Shropshire (part of the Walking in England website) has brought it together in one place so whether you are walking from home, or away on holiday, you will be able to find a walk suitable for you’.

With walks from half a mile to twelve miles plus long, and a note of suitability for pushchairs and wheelchairs, everyone can find a walk to enjoy.

So home or away, check out the websites and get walking!

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