Walk & Talk with Jane Davidson

For more than a decade, Jane Davidson, the Labour Welsh Assembly Member for Pontypridd and a former vice president of Ramblers Cymru, has been lobbying for the interests of walkers in Wales. Now appointed as the Minister for the Environment, Sustainability and Housing, here she tells Dominic Bates about her fears over devastating budget cuts and the progress of the all-Wales coast path…

Where did you get your love of walking?
I’ve always loved walking. I was brought up in America and Zimbabwe [Jane’s parents were doctors], but we used to come to the UK once a year and stay in a family cottage in Wensleydale. We’d walk miles and I was regularly walking bits of the Pennine Way before it was designated. I hadn’t heard of the Ramblers then but I was a keen youth hosteller all through my childhood and walked the Pembrokeshire Coast Path when I was 16. I do most of my walking in Wales now but the Yorkshire Dales is still one of my absolutely favourite places to walk.

You’ve worked closely with Ramblers Cymru for years – how did that relationship begin?
Back in 1983, I started working for the Youth Hostel Association in Wales [as a development officer] and did an event with Ramblers Cymru, teaching people to make stiles and repair walls. Our organisations continued working together for years afterwards and later, in 1999, I was invited to become a vice president of Ramblers Cymru [Davidson stepped down in 2007 after being made Minister for the Environment, Sustainability and Housing].

What achievements were you most proud of during your vice presidency?
I was very conscious of influencing what my own party was doing about walking and was absolutely delighted that we put the idea of a round-Wales path into our Labour manifesto for 2007. I’ve also been able to strongly advocate walking in communities where it’s not a traditional pastime. Probably my proudest achievement was working with the Ramblers in our Communities First areas [identified as Wales’ most deprived] and taking a walk in Tonyrefail in my constituency. It was pouring with rain and more than 20 local people turned up in completely unsuitable clothes and shoes. But we had a great evening, and there were at least three or four who told me they’d never been up the hill which had been behind them all their lives. To get so many walking on a horribly wet day in an area where people do not traditionally walk was fantastic.

The all-Wales coast path is much more advanced than England’s counterpart – what lessons can England learn from Wales’ experiences so far?
We learnt a lot from the Pembrokeshire Coast Path when it was set up in 1970: that it’s possible to mix walkers and livestock; and that villages in Pembrokeshire, which otherwise only saw money coming in during the height of the summer, now see income throughout the year as a result of the coast path. Since then, the Ramblers’ own research has demonstrated that walking brings something like £68 million annually into the Welsh economy. So when we opened the latest big stretch of path along the Ceredigion Coast two years ago, many of the landowners we negotiated with already understood that it would produce a really positive outcome. There’s always some resistance but we haven’t needed to take any statutory intervention yet using the powers outlined in the Marine and Coastal Access Act.
Will the path be ready in time for the 2012 Olympics as planned? We’re pretty well on track at the moment. A number of new sections have opened over the summer – including a 47km/27-mile stretch from Gronant dunes, near Prestatyn, to Llandudno – and we’ve developed a ‘dragon shell’ brand to waymark the route.

How seriously are budget cuts likely to impact on footpaths in Wales?
I’m very, very worried about it. The Welsh government has actively prioritised footpaths, putting £5 million into ROWIPs [local authorities’ rights of way improvement plans] and another £2 million dedicated to coastal improvement over the last three years. In all, over 7,644km/4,750 miles of public rights of way have been improved with assembly government funding in the last two years, so a lot of this is at risk. I’ll still be lobbying very hard for funding to ensure that we can keep paths open, but we’re also very keen to create or improve multi-user routes. I’m confident the funding will remain for the coastal path since it’s a major manifesto commitment and requires another year of funding to take it forward. But I can’t be confident about the level of funds [for other routes] because the cuts from the UK government are happening faster and deeper than we would be advocating.

Is walking taken seriously by the Welsh Assembly as a means of tackling obesity and health-related problems in Wales?
Oh, tremendously. Wales’ government is the only one in the UK – and one of three in the world – which actually has a legal duty to consider sustainable development in everything it does. I have the responsibilities for sustainability and climate change for the whole Assembly, so I have conversations with the health minister about walking for health and the economic minister (who is also the transport minister) about making sure we have the appropriate community footpaths allied to road schemes. He and I jointly chair a walking and cycling steering group, too, and set up a cycling and walking action plan because I was concerned that we weren’t meeting a couple of our big sustainable development indicators. The latest figures from 2009 show the number of trips made by private motor vehicles increased by 7% and those by walking and cycling decreased by 7% over the same period. We have people coming to Wales from all over the UK because it’s such a fantastic location to walk and cycle, yet our own population is doing it less. You worked as a teacher, then as a youth and community worker. Is it important for the Ramblers to engage with youth? It’s absolutely critical and I don’t think the Ramblers has cracked it yet. There’s a Sustrans project called Bike It which places an officer in schools to encourage young people to cycle. It’s immensely successful. The Ramblers should look to do something similar for walking to reach the next generation.

What do you think of Ramblers Cymru’s new eTrails project?
It’s very exciting. We’ve got to use all the mechanisms at our disposal to encourage people to take up walking, and eTrails is a great way of engaging people through new technology. But I still think people need to know how to read a map and should understand you don’t need any special gear to go walking.

The Ramblers is 75 this year – any advice for its continued success?
As well as its traditional work, I think the Ramblers has a major role in advising and helping people understand the benefits of walking. And if it could make the next 25 years about building a youth walking movement, that would be a fantastic legacy.

What’s your favourite…

…city walk?
The Taff Trail from the valleys into the heart of Cardiff. It’s the city’s green lung, where you can see kingfishers and fish. It’s the model walk: flat, disabled-friendly and connected to rail links.

…countryside walk?
It’s a tie between the Pembrokeshire Coast Path – my first major walk – or Great Shunner Fell on the Pennine Way.

…piece of walking kit?
It would have to be my boots – I alternate between my light leather Brasher ones and modern Berghaus.

…view?
From the top of the Garth Mountain, where I live, looking north to Pen y Fan in the Brecon Beacons and south over Cardiff to Somerset across the River Severn.

…post-walk tipple?
Has to be a good pint of locally brewed beer, like Otley’s ale from Pontypridd.

Photography: Martin Cavaney