THE information super highway is going to be used to help fix the footways of the Lake District National Park.

At their latest gathering, members of the national park authority’s implementation committee backed a plan to launch a public online appeal to raise around £3 million for repairing 142 seriously-eroded upland paths.

The appeal would be run in partnership with the National Trust, English Nature and the Lake District Tourism and Conservation Partnership via a devoted website due to be launched early next year.

Richard Fox, the LDNPA’s uplands paths adviser, said: “An online appeal would not only be a source of funds, it would also raise awareness and promote understanding of the problems of path erosion.

The appeal site would be linked to other websites and people surfing the net would be transported to the fells for the latest information on the eroded routes.” The Upland Path Landscape Restoration Project will run for ten years. The £2.6 million cost of the first five years’ work has been part funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) with a grant of £1.46m.

Other sponsors include the Lake District Tourism and Conservation Partnership, Friends of the Lake District and Hawkshead Clothing, who have also chipped in to help cover costs.

But it is estimated that another £3 million is needed to complete the project and that is where the online appeal comes in.

Other fund-raising options will be explored as well, including a further bid to the HLF and other organisations along with efforts to attract corporate sponsorship, increase funding by the organisations managing the project and garnering support from path users.

“So far we have repaired 44 paths, so that the scars on the landscape that were expanding year by year are beginning to heal,” said Mr Fox. “Another benefit is that the paths are more pleasant to use and better able to sustain the pressure of their popularity. But there is still a lot to do and we must find the money for the final five years of the work.”