Can rural active travel infrastructure be built more quickly, for less money and with additional environmental and community benefits?

We believe so. This thought experiment lays out some potential models.

Example route from Caerlaverock Castle to Dumfries

About

The term "thought experiment" has been very carefully chosen for this project. These are not real projects, these are not proposed projects and the respective land owners, tenant farmers, governing authorities and adjacent communities are not involved in this project.

These thought experiments are simply "what ifs?", products of the imagination that may help you think about your own projects differently.

These ideas are released on the world under a Creative Commons attribution-sharealike license. This means you can replicate parts of this site or incorporate the thinking into any of your own projects simply by attributing anything you do with it to the original source.

Key Principles

Income for all. Lease don't own

Most active travel paths projects begin with purchase of land. Long term lease agreements paid for by co-located solar could reduce barriers to getting the rights to land needed for a rural network of active travel paths. Electricity generated from solar is highly predictable over one year. This means a project team would be able to illustrate annual income to the land owner and community.

Use permitted development rights

Planning applications are slow, costly and bureaucratic. They're not for everyone. Thoughtful, rural projects on marginal farm land can largely work within a less stringent planning framework. Dividing a project into appropriate sections means you can adopt the least burdensome approach at each stage.

Partner well for patient impact

The word debt scares many people, but project finance using debt or equity doesn't have to be exclusive from grant funding. Partners like Scottish National Investment Bank (SNIB) invest in projects that move the country forward with patient capital; i.e. with a longer term view of the returns. SNIB have £2Bn for investment. To date they have commited £640M (mid 2024). The minimum facility is £1M, with debt and equity as options.

Read the more detailed proposal and then check out the routes

Thought experiments

: Linking a local heritage site and several villages along a beautiful hilltop route and on to the main town of Dumfries via quiet and traffic free routes. Avoids the rather traffic heavy NCN stretch.
: Connecting two seaside villages one of which has a very static large caravan park. Avoids a rather treacherous stretch of A road. Several important heritage sites are dotted along the route. Quiet branches to adjacent villages could make this a route the the local community and holidaymakers alike.

Still here?

Wow, you made it this far. Thank you so much for stopping by.

Once you've had a look at the more detailed proposal and some of the routes used as experiments then check out the resources page. If you're bonkers enough to think, "Maybe we could do something like this where I live." you'll find links to some people who have already built paths and who help support and fund paths.

If you've found the fatal flaw in my thinking and are just burning to tell me why I'm wrong, I'm more than happy for you to ping me an email at contact@carbon.scot