A BURLEY-IN-WHARFEDALE footpath badly damaged by the Boxing Day floods is now back to normal following repair work

Burley's Walkers Are Welcome group has welcomed the work by Bradford Council countryside services, after members told the local authority it was a priority for attention.

Group chairman, David Asher, said: "We were asked by Bradford Council early in the New Year to identify any footpaths in and around Burley that needed urgent attention due to storm and flood damage.

"We said our priority was a section of the very popular footpath linking Burley with Stead Lane, which had become severely eroded due to water damage and had led to utilities pipework becoming exposed.

"It was potentially very hazardous. Having heard Countryside Services had unfortunately lost a lot of their equipment used for footpath maintenance and repair due to flood damage at their property in Shipley, we didn’t expect they would be able to do the work very quickly. We were delighted, therefore, to find they had been able to complete the work this week."

He added: "It looks great and local people are already back to using it in numbers."

Bradford's countryside services are also working with Walkers Are Welcome volunteers and members of Lower Wharfedale Ramblers on a number of longer term improvements to footpaths in the Burley area.

Details of a forthcoming working party, which will involve installing a new kissing gate, building a bridge and resurfacing a stretch of footpath under a local railway bridge, can be found on the group’s waw-burleyinwharfedale.org website or by contacting Mr Asher on 01943 862965.