A large crowd of residents recently turned out for the official re-opening of the historic green lane from the school to the churchtown in St Breward.

The stone wall lined path is the main walking route between most of the houses in the village and the church, shop, village hall and pub and had over the years fallen into disrepair with many of the stone walls collapsing and the surface little more than a muddy quagmire in places.

With the Cornwall Council budget for footpath maintenance being increasingly directed only at sorting erosion problems on the South West Coast Path, the parish council decided to take matters into its own hands and with the help of their local Cornwall Councillor applied for an EU LEADER grant to enable extensive restoration works to be carried out.

These EU funds have been administered locally by the Atlantic and Moors Local Action Group who have helped communities and businesses in North Cornwall access over £2-million of funding over the life of the scheme.

“As a steering committee member for the Local Action Group I was delighted to be able to help St Breward Parish Council access the funding they required to do the restoration work on the stone walls,” said local Cornwall Councillor Dominic Fairman.

“Without access to the grant funding the project would have simply been beyond the budget of the parish council.”

The work was undertaken by a local contractor using skilled workers from the village, and Cormac provided over 70 tonnes of road plainings to make good the path surface.

In addition to the wall restorations there has been a new access friendly ramp and gate installed at the church end with interpretation boards to inform visitors to the village.

The project to repair and where necessary replace some of the ancient hedges, install drainage, imrove the surface, provide a stock proof gate at school and make a ramped gated access at Churchtown was costed at £67,800.

St Breward Parish Council was grateful to be awarded a grant of £43,744 from the Rural Development Programme for England (LEADER Programme) toward the project costs. Other costs were met from the parish council and Cornwall Council.

A St Breward Parish Council spokesperson said: “St Breward Parish Council is grateful to the main contractor Mark Andrew and parishioners who helped with various aspects of the project.”

Cllr Fairman added: “When the village shop moved up to the churchtown a couple of years ago, it became obvious that this path would be of increasing importance to all the village. Everyone involved with the project realised the significance and went the extra mile to get the work completed and to a very high standard.”

The finished result was extremely well received by all of the residents who came to the opening, and then walked the path to a welcome tea and refreshments courtesy of the Old Inn and Restaurant.