MILFORD: The trails on the grounds of the Milford Recreation Association have been upgraded to the tune of $40,000, included almost an estimated $30k in-kind work through man hours and donation of materials.
Sandra Watson told The Laker News that the Trails Improvement Project saw widening of the entire trail system, laying landscape fabric under a large 3-4-inch stone base, layered with Class A over the top of the trail.
“There was more than two kilometers of trail beds redone by this volunteer community group of men,” said Watson.
The trails had been built back in the 1990s and maintained over the past 30 plus years through donations, small grants, and volunteer work.
“The trails needed upgrades to make the trail system easier to maintain and available for more users,” Watson said. “Improvements were needed to keep the trail system open and in good condition for use by the public.”
The trails are used for walking, school running clubs, bike riding, dog walkers and families taking strollers through the trails. In the winter people continue to walk on the trails, but users also snowshoe and cross-country ski as well.
“The areas addressed with this project were wet areas on the trail system with the addition of culverts and stone as well as widening of the trails for easier use,” said Watson.
She said the most important goal of having this work done was to ensure that the trail system remains viable for the next decade or more, requiring less maintenance due to the upgrades, with the addition of culverts, new stone and widening of the trail system.
“Wooden structures were removed and replaced with new culvert systems, which will not require as much maintenance as wooden structures,” she said.
MRA received a grant of $5,000 to support the trails improvement project from the province’s Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage; and $8,000 from the Municipality of East Hants, Department of Parks Recreation and Culture. The grant received from the MEH through the District Recreation Funding was $10,000 overall, with the remaining portion of that grant money going to other work at the hall.
The MRA has already seen increased user traffic on the trails.
“Our goals were to improve the quality of the trail, and to encourage increased user traffic,” said Watson.
The volunteer trails group made their plans for trails improvement and decided what was the course of action needed to accomplish the goals of the project.
“The trails group went about their work and had set a target end date for the project of October 31 which they were able to meet,” she said. “There were approximately 12-15 volunteers involved over the past couple of months, with an estimated 800 plus man hours donated for this project.
“There was also donated use of tractors from Willy Versteeg, Ken Squire and Ralph Wardrope, and donated culverts, pipe and products from Derek Collins, through his employer Soleno.”
Watson said MRA would like to extend thanks and gratitude to the following Milford community members that were on the MRA Trails committee below:
Willy Versteeg; Ken Squire; Ron Sampson; Blaine Mayo; Mike Pelly; Peter Giffen; Dave Manning; Kenny Ross; John Tompkins; Luc Boudreau; Derek Collins; John Tompkins; Ralph Wallis; and Bob MacKay.
“Without this fantastic group of volunteers, MRA would not have been able to have this project completed,” said Watson.
