Lugar River Walk

Paddy McDonald is the Countryside Development Officer for East Ayrshire Leisure Trust. Paddy played a pivotal role in the improvement of the walk along the river from being a rough path to a formal walkway that is accessible to everyone.

"The key thing was liaising with landowners in terms of where they wanted the route to be and what they needed in terms of fencing etc to allow public access. In some places the path was just a desire line, we wanted to make it accessible for everyone. There are a lot of young mums in the area using other routes with prams and buggies, we felt it was important to include them."

Paddy and his team along with the CCLP arranged with contractors to create paths that were safe and protected from erosion by the river itself. Liaison and mediating between landowners, contractors, East Ayrshire Council and the public at large was not always an easy task.

In some cases the path needed to be moved from the established route either for safety, to account for environmental considerations or to make sure the people who actually owned the land were not inconvenienced or suffering damage to crops. This as you can imagine was a very complicated process for lots of reasons.

"Some landowners couldn't agree, at the end of the day sometimes it just doesn't work out!"

On the whole the project has been a great success and it is now possible to walk from Cumnock to Ochiltree via the grounds of Dumfries House.

There are cafes at both ends and within Dumfries house so refreshments and toilet facilities are well catered for. This is important for those using the path but also for the economy of the local area. People are more likely to visit if they have a destination or objective to aim for.

The benefits of an extended walk or cycle are clearly more than enough to compensate for the cake at the end!

The path is very well used now with clear signposts attracting more users.

"A couple of landowners were not particularly happy to start with. We took them out to see other places along the route and spoke to people using the path. This helped them come around, that was very satisfying. So was getting very positive feedback from people using the path."

Paddy was quite rightly reluctant to say if he had a favorite spot as there are so many along the way.

The next phase of the path is now under construction taking it all the way into the village of Lugar itself.

"The work the CCLP have done and are still doing is really important to the local communities. I've been really happy to be involved. The extension to Lugar is absolutely fantastic. My team go into every school in East Ayrshire. We take groups out to do environmental education on site. The fact that we can now do that at more points along the Lugar Water really expands the environmental knowledge base."