The next meeting for the Friends of Baildon Moor is to be held in the Baildon Club at 7:30pm.

Note that these are not public meetings.

The work on the Sconce path is now complete and has received praise from a number of people. Though FoBM believe the work they are doing is for the best it is nice to receive positive comments.

Bradford Countryside Services have started work on the path from Hope Hill down to the gannister pit. A number of complaints had been received about the paths in this area. In the past there had been 5 identifiable paths but at the moment it is planned to work on only one of them.

A bin is to be installed at the end of the Sconce path and signs are to be created for this and the other bins that FoBM have commissioned. The signs are to include the logo of FoBM.

Due to the season, lack of light in the evenings, and the weather, it is unlikely that FoBM will be doing any more bracken strimming this year.

At a recent meeting of the Baildon Parish Council it was agreed that a response was needed from the parish council about the work being done on the reservoirs on Baildon Moor.

The document can be downloaded from the parish council website by using this link.

The Friends of Baildon Moor will have a scarecrow for people to find on the Baildon Scarecrow Walk which starts at 10am on Saturday 10 September 2011.

The work on the Sconce footpath should be completed week commencing 12 September. The work done so far has been well received. Many people have made favourable comments.

Money well spent.

It has been noted that wood chippings have been piled near the entrance to the reservoirs. This is on common land and therefore needs dealing with. FoBM will try to find out what is happening and report here if anything is news worthy.

David Sturge and Paul Marfell worked from 7:00pm until light stopped play on a footpath near Crook Farm and one from the Sconce path to Joe’s Well. In places the bracken was above our heads and clearing the way after cutting it down with the strimmer took as much effort as wielding the strimmer.

It was evident that people had struck out and made additional tracks because of the difficulty in following the existing path. The difficulty is in knowing where the existing path is and being able to push through it. By keeping the existing paths clearer, easier to use and more evident it will help protect the other parts of the moor.

David Sturge, helped a bit later by Paul Marfell, used one of the FoBM strimmers to clear bracken away from one of the paths near Glen Road. The reason for clearing the bracken from some of the paths is so that there are several routes available to walkers. In this way there is not too much traffic on a limited number of paths and also for there to be no need for people to strike out and create new paths.

If you are sometimes free to give some time to a task like this please contact us (info@baildonmoor.org) and we can let you know when we are planning to work. Without suitable training people will not be able to use the strimmers but it is always great to have people to clear away the cut bracken.

The Friends of Baildon Moor committee met on 9th August where Bill Slessor gave a presentation of his DVD on Shipley Glen and Baildon Moor. View the minutes for the meeting here: Minutes 9th Aug 2011 (75KB)

An emergency meeting was held 2 August 2011 to discuss the work being done on the reservoirs on Baildon Moor.

Though many people were aware of there being plans for the reservoirs it was still thought that it would be some time before work would start. It took many by surprise when the earth moving equipment started scraping away the vegetation, cutting away the wall between the two lower reservoirs and also tipping some of the spoil over the wall on the South side of the reservoirs.

After quite a bit of discussion the meeting agreed that a sympathetic use of the reservoirs that was achieved by methods that were the least disruptive was better than them deteriorating further and having to be demolished.

The FOBM therefore feel that they are in a good position to have frequent informal discussions with either Gary Hudson or Arthur Edwick so that activities do not take people by surprise again. The FOBM can use this website to try to let people know what is happening or, what is more likely, that when questions are asked by members of the public we have something to tell them.

FOBM will keep an eye on the work being done and try to make sure that the relevant experts are consulted and are aware of the plans. It is thought that reservoirs require quite a specialised knowledge and ones built more than 100 years ago even more so.