Putting Down Routes is a project led by Kent Downs National Landscape that is aimed at making the iconic North Downs Way National Trail, and the wider protected landscape around it, a safe, inclusive and accessible destination where everyone feels welcome. The project includes a trail-wide programme of access improvements, such as removing physical barriers to walking, wheeling and riding, and widening participation among communities who are under-represented in the outdoors.
A place where everyone feels welcome (C) Kent Downs National Landscape
Ensuring under-represented audiences feel safe and welcome in the outdoors
A central strand of Putting Down Routes, funded by National Lottery Heritage Fund and Defra's Farming in Protected Landscapes programme, is community engagement with groups who are traditionally under-represented in the countryside, including visitors with disabilities or limited mobility, as well as culturally diverse communities.
The project partnered with Black Girls Hike, a community providing a safe space for Black women to explore the outdoors; Wild With Wheels CIC, led by Gini Mitchell (recently appointed Disability and Access Ambassador for the Countryside by the UK Cabinet Office) offering free, accessible guided nature experiences for people with disabilities; and Diversiti UK, who have delivered equality, diversity, unconscious bias and safeguarding training to businesses along the route.
Putting Down Routes is a collaborative project between Kent Downs National Landscape and North Downs Wat National Trail (C) Kent Downs National Landscape
Alongside community engagement events, the project has recruited new North Downs Way Ambassadors from a wide range of backgrounds to help champion the trail and reach new communities.
Giving real people a real voice has been key to the success of the project
At the heart of the project is a simple principle: people with lived experience should have a voice in the decisions that affect them. By creating opportunities for people to share their experiences directly with policy makers, planners and those responsible for infrastructure and visitor experiences, the project is helping ensure accessibility is shaped by real voices and real lives.
Hearing people's voices was
Listening was backed up by experience. In sessions delivered with Wild With Wheels and Cinque Ports Mobility, decision-makers navigated outdoor and urban environments using wheelchairs and mobility scooters, encountering gates, lifts, toilets, cafés, inclines, uneven ground, puddles and overhanging branches first-hand. It brought home the everyday barriers people face and reinforced why accessibility should be shaped with people, not simply for them.
These invaluable insights have translated into physical works across the Kent Downs and Surrey Hills National Landscapes. In Wye, a section of the North Downs Way National Trail affected by exposed roots was restored and resurfaced with a porous, flexible, recycled material, improving access for cyclists, wheelchair and mobility-scooter users, and those with buggies and in Surrey Hills, six further surfacing and drainage projects, alongside vegetation management, trail-level raising in wet spots and new waymarking, have improved roughly a third of the trail in that area. Work that has been guided throughout by Gini Mitchell and Wild With Wheels CIC.
The project ensures that insights come from people with lived experience (C) Kent Downs National Landscape
Project partners Black Girls Hike worked closely with the Putting Down Routes team and Wild with Wheels, beginning in the early planning stages of the project. Over the course of the project, the organisation delivered 16 walks and events, engaging a total of 320 their community members. As well as this, four members of Black Girls Hike successfully completed Ambassador training, further embedding the community into the project’s legacy.
Diversiti UK delivered a series of training workshops and short videos on equity, diversity and inclusion for the Kent Downs National Landscape team, wider network, North Downs Way Ambassadors and local businesses. This work culminated in the creation of a suite of training materials and workshops on Managing Diversity and Discrimination, which was rolled out across the Protected Landscape Partnership.
Putting Down Routes combined physical trail improvements with community engagement, training and user-led auditing of accessibility barriers. The project offers a model for how National Landscapes can work in partnership with groups who are under-represented in countryside access, particularly visitors with disabilities or limited mobility, as well as culturally diverse communities.
Get involved and help ensure more people get connected with nature
There is an opportunity to support this incredibly important and established project to expand its reach and impact, allowing more people to benefit from better access and nature connectedness for the first time. To find out more, speak to our Nature-based Solutions team.
