News Update from the Chair - February 2020

WHAT HAVE WE DONE? WHAT ARE WE DOING?
An update from our Chair, February 2020


There is a lot going in the Great Ouse Valley as we seek to PROMOTE, PROTECT and ENHANCE this wonderful landscape.

  • We are completing a survey of the entire route of the Ouse Valley Way long-distance footpath through Huntingdonshire and working with the County Council to improve maintenance and implement new signage. 

Copyright Stephen and Lucy Dawson https://www.luphen.org.uk/walks/ouse_valley_way/houghton_earith.htm

  • We are working with the Godmanchester Freemen on a project to plant new willows on Westside Common.

  • We are working with the Environment Agency and Huntingdonshire District Council on a new ‘fish pass’ at Godmanchester to facilitate movement of fish upstream.

  • We have had a successful book launch of our first publication A Commanding View: The Houses and Gardens of Houghton Hill by our trustee, Bridget Flanagan.

  • We have asked searching questions at the Cambridge and Peterborough Combined Authority Board meetings to argue against the destruction of our treasured landscape by the proposed third river crossing.

  • In our continuing campaign to achieve Area of Outstanding Beauty designation we have given evidence and ensured recognition within the government’s Glover report on our national parks and protected landscapes.

  • We will be producing informative maps on the Ouse Valley Way footpath plus a visitors’ guide to other features of the Valley.

  • Our Partner Members represent most of the Ouse Valley towns and parishes as well as national organisations such as the National Trust, the Campaign to Protect Rural England and the British Horse Society. Over 40 representatives from the Partner Membership met before Christmas to discuss and agree our way forward and to produce a Business Plan for the coming years
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  • The Great Ouse Valley is one of the most precious landscapes in the East of England and in a county with less ‘natural’ landscape than any other rural county. Please help us to gain the national status it deserves
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  • Please stay in touch and keep up to date here with our news and activities. You can also follow us on Facebook. Your views, ideas and photographs are always welcome.

  • If your organisation is not already a Partner Member please get in touch!

Graham Campbell, February 2020