TWO Cirencester town councillors have mucked in to help lay a gravel path in Beeches ward following recent bad weather.

Councillors Nigel Robbins and Stuart Tarr gathered a team of volunteers, after persuading the council to fund the laying of a special gravel mix surface to a footpath near the old railway line, after complaints from residents it had become difficult to walk on.

Stuart Tarr, councillor for Beeches ward, said: “The council has received a number of complaints from local residents regarding the mud and puddles on the pathway.

"We couldn’t respond with tarmac as it’s too expensive but also because of the council’s ethos of preserving green open space.”

But funding, which Cllr Tarr estimated stood at around £500, was made available to pay for materials and a special self-binding gravel mix, which also contains clay and grit to make what is known as a ‘hoggin path’.

Cllr Tarr explained that once the various layers of the mix are put down, a vibrating plate is used to compact the mixture, which will then take a few weeks to set properly.

He said it is a technique commonly used on rural and semi-rural pathways in parks and on country estates.

“We’ve been encouraging local community volunteers to set an example and they’ve risen to the challenge,” he said as he shovelled grit into a wheelbarrow. “It’s taken quite a bit of planning, pushing and peddling but it’s getting done.”

The path is used on a daily basis by school children from Kingshill and Watermoor schools as well as dog walkers.

Cllr Tarr said initially only around half of the amount of mixture needed was paid for – to create the “reliable finish that we’re trying to achieve” – when the team started last Wednesday.

However, he hoped once the council saw the progress they were making, they would “step up to the plate” and provide the extra funding, which they did on Thursday afternoon.

Cllr Nigel Robbins, deputy mayor, and also a council member for Beeches ward, described the project as a “community enterprise.” He said: “Bit by bit the town council has got to grips with it.”

The work was started on January 27 and is expected to finish on Monday or Tuesday, (February 1-2), with an estimated “48 tonnes” of mixture having been used.