A story of the event has now been published in the Chichester Post
The Friends of Centurion Way held a Valentines Love your Path event on Saturday February the 9th and for a cold mid February day the path was especially busy. We handed out lots of leaflets to passers by highlighting the development threats to the southern end of the path. We also made people hot drinks to help warm their hearts. We met many happy but slightly muddy youngsters enjoying vigorous healthy exercise with their families and shared some delicious heart shaped biscuits with them to help boost their energy.
At least one family brought bicycles, fixed to a bike roof rack from Bognor Regis so they could enjoy a bike ride together. Centurion Way is such a wonderful shared footpath cycle-way leading into the beautiful South Downs that people are willing to travel a long way to visit this environment where they can cycle safely. There are now plans to extend the path further North to Cocking but it is already a great ride up from Chichester to West Dean where the local store offers excellent toasted sandwiches, pastries and coffee. A handy tip for any tourists wanting to cycle Centurion Way is the excellent local bike shop in Fishbourne http://www.barreg.co.uk/ who do very reasonable bike or tandem hire. They are only a short walk from Fishbourne station.
Sarah Sharp (Chichester’s green city councillor) joined our event and explained the importance of extending wider cycle and pedestrian provision to match Centurion Way all across West Sussex. She is passionate that community access to centurion way is not impeded by local development and said it is vital that local people demonstrate their commitment to maintaining the path as a community asset. She and Philip Maber certainly matched words to action by filling two large bags with all manner of nasty rubbish which they gathered from along the path. It was just as well they bought a little antibacterial hand-wash. If we could gather more support like theirs we could soon have a cycle network to rival the Dutch National Cycle Network where 26% of all trips in the Netherlands are now made by bicycle. (source https://www.eesc.europa.eu/glossaries/glossary/european-cycling-lexicon/page/some-cycling-statistics & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_in_the_Netherlands)
We believe the heritage and naturalised route of CW along the old Railway Line to Midhurst is very special. If you agree that we should conserve and actually enhance the safe, family friendly access to not only Centurion Way, but also to Fishbourne and Chichester Harbour (including Salterns Way), and into Chichester City Centre, then please consider joining the Friends of Centurion Way http://www.centurionway.org.uk/sign-up-form/
Sarah and Philip collected several bags of rubbish from the path
Photo from Chichester Post story