Why walking out together helps to keep the countryside in financial good health

Like many Yorkshire towns, Snaith has Viking roots. It was named after the Scandinavia for “piece of land cut off”, which is exactly how most of the residents still feel.

Six miles from Goole and halfway between Leeds and Hull, the town might only be a short drive from the M62, but it’s not the kind of place people arrive uninvited. However, when Snaith launches its first walking festival at the end of the month, there is hope that might change.

“This area is full of history, heritage, wildlife and waterways, however, it is too often regarded as an area to pass through and not a place to stop and enjoy,” says Keith Greenwood, one of the driving forces behind the festival. “The hope is this event will encourage visitors to come to the area, to linger awhile and perhaps revisit because they have had a memorable experience.”

The event will mark the official launch of Snaith’s new heritage boards which will lead visitors around 15 different walks, taking in the likes of Cowick Hall, a former royal manor house, the Gothic splendour of Carlton Towers and the town’s own parish church. While the project aims to raise awareness of this small corner of Yorkshire, it also hopes to prove much more than a simple history lesson.

“I’m retired now, but I do a little work as a walking guide in York,” adds Keith. “Everyone knows that city is packed with history, but I don’t see why that same model can’t work in somewhere like Snaith. If we can get people to come here, then hopefully they will not only spend money in our cafes and in our shops, but crucially they will want to come back.”

In the early 1990s, a rash of literary festivals broke out across Britain. By then the Ilkley Literature Festival was already well established, but when Hay on Wye launched its first book event in 1998 it provided a blueprint which became much copied.

However, now the same makeover which happened to books is happening to walking and it’s one which could deliver a real economic boost to Yorkshire.

Rural regeneration company Pennine Prospects was set up in 2005 and one of its key projects has been the annual Walk and Ride Festival, which aims to draw visitors to the countryside which lies in between Leeds and Manchester.

“Seven million people live within an hour’s drive of the South Pennines, but it’s an overlooked jewel,” says Sue Leffman, Walk and Ride project officer. “The reason Pennine Prospects was set up was to raise awareness of the vast tracts of open moorland and steep wooded valleys. You can’t expect people to just come, you have to create a connection between them and the landscape and a walking festival is a really great way of doing that.

“This year we are looking at doing a series of guided walks on the ecology of the peat uplands because people don’t just want to walk they want to learn a little bit about the landscape and how it developed over many hundreds of years.

“Of course anyone can grab a pair of walking boots and head for the hills, but there are a lot of people who don’t feel confident with just an Ordnance Survey map and a compass as a guide. Events like this provide a real focus.”

Last year, 3,000 people attended the Walk and Ride Festival, which takes place each September, and while the majority came from West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester, a significant number travelled from much further afield.

“We had one lady come from Somerset and she fell in love with the landscape of the South Pennines so much that she ended up moving here, which is quite an achievement,” says Sue. “The fact is, future economic and cultural prosperity depends upon protecting and valuing the past while finding new ways to create a living landscape for the 21st-century.”

As part of the Pennine Prospects scheme, the rural development programme Leader has been given more than £2.4m, which will be spent on rural projects by 2013 and hopefully deliver a lasting legacy for the area.

“We basically have funding until 2013-14, but the project will definitely live on,” says Sue. ““The online database of walks and information which we have already created will remain and there is no reason why the festival won’t continue.”

It is notoriously difficult to estimate the economic benefits of walking. However, a report produced by the Welsh arm of the Ramblers in 2009 found the 28 million walking trips made to the country each year contributed £632m in direct spending and supported increased employment. It’s research which is backed up the experience of the Richmond Walking and Boots Festival whose vital importance became clear following the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001.

When much of the countryside was turned into a no-go area, the organisers had no option but to suspend the event which was then in its infancy. However, the small team of enthusiasts, led by Mike Sheehan, owner of Yorkshire walking boot company Alt-Berg, returned the following year and in 2007, the festival teamed up a Richmond bookshop to add a programme of literary events.

“The idea was to give the walkers something to keep them entertained after a day’s hiking and both sides of the festival complement each other,” says Anne Wikes, owner of Richmond’s Castle Hill Books. “The walking events do tend to attract a lot of people from around the country and the literary side is very well supported by the people who live and work in Richmond. It gets people out into the beautiful countryside, but crucially it also brings people and revenue to the town.”

Elsewhere, the Boot and Steam Festival in Pickering is about to enter its third year, a festival organised by the Black Sheep Brewery will mark its 11th anniversary this autumn and the Yorkshire Wolds is planning to play host to its second walking festival this October following the success of a similar event last year.

“We have always had a strong presence in the Yorkshire Dales,” says a spokesman for the Masham brewery behind the Boots and Beer Festival. “When foot and mouth hit the area in 2001 it had a catastrophic impact not only on the farmers, but also the local communities which survived on tourists visiting the area.

“The first festival, which we held in Hawes the following year, was an attempt to reopen the countryside and to get the tourism industry restarted. Back then there were just 70 walkers, but a decade on it attracts hundreds of visitors and has become a key date in the walking calendar.”

In fact the only down side to the growth in walking festivals seems to be for those who would rather keep the countryside a peaceful idyll.

“Walkers can be prone to snobbishness,” says broadcaster and walking enthusiast Stuart Maconie, who has just published Never Mind the Quantocks, a collection of his monthly columns for Country Walking magazine. “I often worry when I write about a favourite spot, the next time I go I will be greeted with coach loads of ramblers disturbing my peace.

“I have to remind myself that while this is a tiny island, it is still really easy to lose yourself in the countryside. I definitely think more and more people are seeking occasional escape from the mind jangling effect of modern life and that’s to be applauded.

“I suspect there are some who dismiss walking festivals as somehow not quite the real deal, but spending time in the countryside gives you a real perspective on how trivial and small most of life is and anything which encourages that should be applauded.”

Putting the best boot forward

Snaith Walking Festival, March 31 to April 14. 01482 391668.

Boots and Steam Festival, Pickering, April 21 to 23. 01751 472508, www.nymr.co.uk

Otley Walking Festival, June 23 to July 1. 01943 851166, www.chevintrek.co.uk

Black Sheep Boots and Beer Festival, September 7 to 9. 01765 689 227, www.blacksheepbrewery.com

South Pennine Walk and Ride Festival, September 8 to 23. www.walkandridefestival.co.uk

Pateley Bridge Walking Festival, September 27 to 30. 01423 712088, www.pbwf.co.uk

Walking and Boots Festival, Richmond, September 21 to 30. 01748 824243, www.booksandboots.org.