The Bishopston Walking Map will be launched outside Room 212 on Saturday May 16 from 10am to 4pm.
Walking, both for pleasure and a purpose is a fundamental part of a healthy life, but are our streets really that walkable? The aim of the Let's Walk Bishopston project is to tackle both these issues in the Redland/Bishopston neighbourhood.
The Let's Walk Bishopston project was instigated by Daniella Radice, local Green Councillor and Liz Kew, head of Street Scene for our area, who drew together a team of Bishopston residents, all passionate about creating an easy-to-use walking map of our area. They successfully acquired funding for the project from the BCR Neighbourhood Partnership and then set about talking to residents and walking the area in order to map out the routes.
A local design agency, The Way Design, headed by India Rabey (already known for her illustrations of the Gloucester Rd WI cookbook) has created the map which includes symbols and guides to useful aspects such gradients, location of benches, public toilets and bus stops.
The main aim of the map is to encourage people to get out and about on foot by suggesting useful walks around the area, linking up local services and green spaces. One of the project leaders, Mick Broggio, helped organise the fact finding walking teams and has added 7 routes to the Ramblers Association website, where they are available to everyone. Liz Kew is testing out many of the routes in a mobility scooter. A key aim of the project involved surveying the routes so we can tackle obstacles in future, using our limited council budgets.
A Let's Walk Bishopston Facebook page and twitter have been set up so do use them to post images from the walks and let us know what you spot on your way :
www.facebook.com/pages/Lets-Walk-Bishopston
twitter.com/WalkBishopston