Friends of Nevis Support for All Ability Path repair work

The riverside All Ability Path has suffered damage in the past couple of years when the river has been in flood and overflowed its banks, in particular at the Youth Hostel Bridge end of the path. 
In 2020 the surface of the path in this section was heavily scoured in places by flood water as seen in the image below

Surface of All Ability Path damaged by flood scouring near Youth Hostel

Temporary repairs were carried out in 2020 by Nevis Landscape Partnership Seasonal Rangers by filling in the scoured area with the original path material where it could be recovered and also a tonne of fresh quarry stone. However, this was quite a loose surface finish and as this section of the path will likely see further flooding events, a longer term solution was required. This year Friends of Nevis generously funded the purchase of 100 square meters of Aco Groundguard as a means of stabilising the path surface. This had already been trialed in 2019 around the picnic bench by the Youth Hostel Bridge and proved successful in the subsequent 2020 flood event. Work on laying the Groundguard started in October with the NLP Seasonal Ranger team. More recently Dougie and Calum, two well know faces and general path work gurus, were hired by NLP  to continue with the work. 

Laying interlocking Groundguard tiles prior to filling them with stone

The installed tiles after filling with stone and topping with fine gravel providing a firm surface

Two familiar faces! NLP's previous Path Officer Dougie plus Friends of Nevis regular Calum showed Rory how to do the job!