New Community Miles route announced
Walkers can now put their best foot forward along a new Community Miles route in Denbighshire.
A new addition has been launched to the Community Miles route scheme, covering the Nantglyn area.
Community Miles routes are designed with both communities and visitors in mind. They take roughly a couple of hours to complete and along the way introduce walkers to local businesses and transport routes, show hidden gems and help with physical and mental wellbeing.
Denbighshire County Council and the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) has 24 circular routes mainly covering Denbighshire from Prestatyn in the North to Llandrillo in South
Existing routes have been improved with new stiles, gates and bridges, and waymarked to make it easier to follow the route. Each walk has a leaflet with a map and information about what walkers can see, as well as ideas for local transportation to and from the beginning to the end.
The new Nantglyn route has also had improvements made to it with support from the Green Communities project. This includes improved signage and replacement of stiles for gates where possible.
It consists of two circular walks from the village, Y Waen and Foel Gasyth giving far reaching views of Hiraethog and the northern Clwydian Range
Emlyn Jones, Head of Planning, Public Protection and Countryside Services, said: “Using the Community Miles routes is a great way to support your own personal and mental wellbeing. They are also fantastic for exploring great areas across Denbighshire and wider afield and I would encourage people to have a go by putting their best foot forward on one of these many routes.”
A Community walk is planned for May to June on the Nantglyn route, for more information email cc.nantglyn@gmail.com.
For more information on the Community Miles routes visit https://www.clwydianrangeanddeevalleyaonb.org.uk/projects/community-miles/
Dark Sky Project
It has been busy in the Dark Sky world over the past few weeks.
We celebrated Wales Dark Sky week, with a week full of events to raise awareness of light pollution and the importance of dark skies. Dark Sky week ran from the 9 - 18 February and the AONB had 7 events organised throughout the week.
These events included two nights of stargazing while paddle boarding with SUP Lass Paddle Adventures, both sessions were sold out with over 30 people attending.
Two planetarium days were held, one at Chirk and the other at the Cathedral in St Asaph, all the sessions were full and over 120 people experienced the planetarium over the two days.
We had a stargazing walk at Penycloddiau with Dani Robertson the Dark Sky officer for project NOS and a Night of storytelling with Fiona Collins at Ty Mawr Country Park.
As well as dark sky week, Dark Skies project staff have been working on a lot of retrofitting projects across the AONB to reduce light pollution and increase awareness of the importance of dark skies. The project has been working closely with Llanfwrog Community Association to replace floodlights on the tennis courts and the lights on the golf driving range.
Through funding from the Welsh Government’s Sustainable Landscapes, Sustainable Places (SLSP) fund, the AONB engaged environmental lighting designers Dark Source to outline a new lighting plan to conquer the effects of light pollution. With this plan the Club successfully attracted funding from the Clocaenog Forest Wind Farm Fund to retrofit the courts.
Llanfwrog Community association have done everything they can to reduce light pollution at the centre and have mitigated as much as possible whilst also creating a safe environment for using the tennis courts and the golf driving range.
Figures have shown by replacing the old 2KW floodlight with the new 800W dark light sport floodlights, when all six courts are switched on they are saving 31.2KW/h which is a saving of 61.9 percent in electricity and carbon emissions which is very positive for the environment and the cost of running the centre.