UPDATE 16 Dec 2019: DLWTRAIL Committee formed.

I'm pleased to announce that, following our appeal for residents of Long Whatton & Diseworth to help us form a committee to steer us into 2020, we now have a committee and a constitution. I'll publish names when we have final confirmation, but I can confirm that we have commitment from enough people to fill five of the six committee slots in our constitution. As our constitution states that we need a minimum of three members to make decisions, that means we have enough committee members to call our first meeting, which we intend to do in January 2020. I've added a new "Committee" page to this website, where you can read our constitution and will be able to read future minutes of our meetings: Click here THANK YOU TO EVERYBODY WHO HAS COME FORWARD TO JOIN THE COMMITTEE, AND TO ALL 130 PEOPLE WHO HAVE CONTRIBUTED A STATEMENT TO OUR DOSSIER OF DEMAND.

I will post another update in this blog in January when we start on the actual work of exploring possibilities and finding the right people to talk to about it! Season's Greetings - Mike Doyle

WHERE WOULD YOUR IDEAL TRAIL GO?

This post is purely blue-sky thinking. If you had the power to create a safe, traffic-free, active travel trail linking Long Whatton to Diseworth, for use by pedestrians, cyclists, wheelchair users and horse riders, where would you put it? THIS IS AN EXERCISE IN YOUR IDEAL WORLD, ignoring any current constraints you may feel. Its purpose is purely to get the creative juices flowing; it's NOT an attempt to define anything at this stage. You can save the map image by right-clicking (or, on a touch screen, long pressing on it) - so feel free to save it, mark your "ideal" route, and post it as a comment on this post. How you mark it is up to you - you could edit your saved image, or print it, mark your ideal route on it with a marker pen, and take a photo of it and include it in your response. Or, if none of that works for you, just use words 😊 LET'S BE CREATIVE!

UPDATE 21 Nov 2019 - FORMING A COMMUNITY GROUP:

DLWTRAIL UPDATE 21 Nov 2019 FORMING A COMMUNITY ACTION GROUP: WHO WANTS TO BE INVOLVED?

Following my recent meeting with Dave Cliffe, Development Officer with VAL (Voluntary Action LeicesterShire), and Sam Lockwood, Clerk to LWDPC (Long Whatton & Diseworth Parish Council), it’s time to push for action on DLWTRAIL. Here’s my proposal: We need to move on from “Wouldn’t this be a good idea?” to “How can we get moving?” The first step would be to commission a FEASIBILITY STUDY to define what we want to achieve, how it might be achieved, building a case, and getting partners on board. To achieve credibility when approaching other parties, we’ve been advised to form ourselves into a COMMUNITY GROUP. Forming a Community Group is quite easy, once we have enough people who want to be part of it. I suggest we start with seven people: Four Officers: - Chair - Vice Chair - Secretary - Treasurer Plus three ordinary members.

We’ve already received potential interest from some people, but I want to throw this open to all. If you’re interested in being involved in our new DLWTRAIL Community Group, as an officer or as a committee member, please email dlwtrail@outlook.com by FRIDAY 29 NOVEMBER stating what post you might be interested in, and which of our two villages you live in (to ensure balanced representation). Please also mention if you have any particular area of interest or expertise which might be relevant to campaigning for, and influencing the creation of, an Active Travel Trail between Long Whatton and Diseworth. I suggest we need at least one member of the equestrian community to be on our committee to represent the views of horse riders. Thank you. - Mike Doyle, Diseworth resident