It is no longer going to be raising funds but will be a voluntary charity involved in campaigning, said treasurer Dani Bennett, who has been a member for several years.
She joined during the Covid years when people were appreciating the quieter roads and asked then chairwoman Pat Wisher if she could help.
Since then, Mrs Wisher has stepped down from the role, as has her predecessor Tom Le Pelley. After the last of the long-serving leaders retired, Deputy John Gollop stepped up as chairman with Mrs Bennett acting as treasurer.
Although at its heart it was always a campaign group for pedestrians, the committee ended up having to raise funds after it was behind the introduction of the walking route from Victoria Avenue to the new St Sampson’s High School and it paid a landowner for a lease on a section of the walk.
‘The rationale for setting up the lease with the charity was perfectly legitimate at the time,’ said Mrs Bennett. ‘But I felt like when I got involved we had no resources to do any fundraising because Pat was tirelessly fundraising just to raise money to pay this landlord.
‘But it’s a pathway that’s used by everyone – cyclists, walkers, dog walkers, runners and the school. It just felt like a large burden on basically two or three people to try and provide this facility for the States. So I felt quite strongly that Living Streets had to move the lease on.’
Once that was resolved it was decided to change the nature of the organisation.
‘The new direction of travel, excuse the pun, is to just be a campaigner. So we don’t want to be fundraising. We don’t want to be organising events or anything like that. We just want to be able to be a voice for pedestrians, which I think is more attractive for volunteers because we really want people’s intellectual contributions rather than loads of time.’
She is hoping that people interested would make contact and perhaps some would want to get involved in the committee.
In line with this change, the group has just launched its first initiative, Community Road Watch, which aims to have people record incidents on local roads, including those that might not be reported to the police.
Environment & Infrastructure Committee president Adrian Gabriel said that Living Streets had told the committee that it was no longer able to support the maintenance of a section of the path between Bukit Estate and the access road to Les Nicolles Prison.
‘We’ve met with one of the landowners within that stretch to ensure it can continue to be used.
‘As there is a mixture of known and unknown landownership within the stretch of path, the committee has supported the need for ownership to be further explored, to see if some of these matters can be resolved, with a view to supporting active travel in the area.’
Anyone who would like to find out more about Living Streets and/or how they can help can contact them via their Facebook page or at living-streets-guernsey@googlegroups.com
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