Red Tarn, near where the Fix the Fells workers were filmed

Volunteers repairing the Lake District’s paths will feature in a television programme to be aired next week.

A film crew from BBC2’s Escape to the Country followed a group working for the Fix the Fells project on a mountain path between Red Tarn and Wrynose Pass. The programme’s presenter Alistair Appleton joined the party laying stepping stones on a boggy section of the path.

The volunteers come from the West Runton Christian Youth Group taking part in a working holiday.

The programme will also feature National Trust Fix the Fells project manager John Atkinson being interviewed about the job of repairing and maintaining paths in the Lake District.

The volunteers were working with professional path fixers to reduce several parallel routes that had developed down to a single good route, and carrying out landscaping work to help repair damaged areas.  Mr Atkinson explained: “People were starting to walk around the bog to avoid it and were damaging the landscape either side, thereby widening the bog and worsening the situation. The line of stepping stones will get walkers back on to one sustainable line allowing the landscape beside the path to recover.

“We want people to continue to come and enjoy the fells, but it takes a lot of hard work to repair and maintain these popular paths.  We’re grateful to everyone who helps Fix the Fells, from volunteers to people making donations.

“So many local businesses rely on visitors coming to the Lake District, it’s vital to the local economy that we look after the landscape.”

Escape to the Country follows people quitting urban life for a rural idyll. The episode featuring the Fix the Fells volunteers is due to screen on Tuesday 27 October at 5.15pm and focuses on a couple hoping to move to Cumbria to run a bed-and-breakfast business and the issues affecting their potential guests.