THE world’s longest managed coastal path is set to be opened today.
The King Charles III Coast Path, stretching some 2,689, will be officially inaugurated and declared ready for thousands of hikers and walkers who want to tackle some or even all of the massive route established by Natural England – the government body responsible for it.
Large swathes of the path have already been in place for centuries, but the KCIIICP project has created more than a thousand miles of new walkways to connect one single route around the coast of England.
Work began 18 years ago, and while some sections are still under construction, they will be completed towards the end of the year – still long before anyone even starting the route today could reach them.
“It is brilliant – the best thing I’ll do in my working life,” declared Neil Constable, who led the project for Natural England.
Speaking to the BBC, he added the length of the path wasn’t really the point of the project. Instead, he says the special element is that you can ‘walk to the coast anywhere in England, turn left or right, and walk beside the sea for as long as you like’.
Fresh legislation in the form of the Marine and Coastal Access Act had to be passed in 2009 followed by several years of planning and access work along the shoreline to establish a clear and continuous footpath.
New rights of access have opened land that had been deemed off-limits to the public, with Natural England establishing routes across dunes, cliff tops and beaches on land between the route and the sea. In many areas, it has also improved access for those with reduced mobility.
However, there are some challenging sections. At the River Erme in South Devon, for instance, no bridge or ferry exists meaning hikers have to time their journey to wade across within a window of opportunity that sits one hour either side of low tide.
Also, upon reaching Liverpool, a ferry across the River Mersey is required to connect the route.
Remarkably, new laws have been designed to allow rising seas and coastal erosion to be considered. Should the coastline alter on any section over the decades, legislation allows for the path to be moved inland at any time.
One charity that will be celebrating the new coastal path today will be the Ramblers Association. It has been campaigning for coastline access since the end of the second world war in 1945.
The director of England for the Ramblers – Jack Cornish – described the KCIIICP project as “transformational”.
“It creates a band of access land from the trail to the high water mark, so that means you can leave the trail to go and roam the beaches,” he explained.
“You can picnic – and on an island nation you can really enjoy our coast for the first time.”
The new route also links with the 870-mile Wales Coast Path which became the first path to follow an entire nation’s coastline. Coupled with the fact that much of Scotland’s coast is already accessible by the country’s ‘right to roam’ law which was passed 20 years ago, today’s inauguration opens up the possibility of an official circular route around Britain’s coast – approximately 5,500 miles.
You can access route maps at the National Trails website here.
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