Green Capital / Feature
Green Capital 2015: Return of WalkFest
The UK’s largest urban walking festival has returned to Bristol.
With Walkfest events running every day throughout May, there’s plenty to choose from. Walkers can take their pick from a range of different routes and activities including learning how to forage, practising Qi Gong, finding your way without a map and meeting new business partners on a NetWalk. Each walk has its own difficulty and accessibility rating to allow people to find the route which suites them best.
In total there are 167 walks in the official programme which will be run by over 80 different partner organisations.
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This year’s launch went city wide to celebrate Bristol’s European Green Capital status with four routes showing different sides of the city, taking in its green spaces and areas of modern and historical architecture.
The “Compass Walk” consisted of four relay walks from different corners of the city before making their way, via a number of short legs, towards the centre. At the end, all of the walkers came together by the fountains to be greeted by the Lord Mayor of Bristol, Cllr Alistair Watson, Andrew Garrad, Chairman of Bristol 2015, and Cllr Daniella Radice, Assistant Mayor for Neighbourhoods, to officially launch the festival.
Former monk and peace activist, Satish Kumar, was also at the event. He took part in the final leg of the south west route from the Southville Centre. Satish is a visiting fellow at Schumacher College and is best known for having completed a peace walk through capitals of four of the nuclear-armed countries – Washington, London, Paris and Moscow – in a trip of over 8,000 miles to promote non-violence and disarmament.
Cllr Daniella Radice, Assistant Mayor for Neighbourhoods said: “I’d like to say thank you to everyone who joined in on Friday and helped to properly launch Bristol Walk Fest 2015. This year’s program is packed full of exciting routes and I hope that people in Bristol take the opportunity to get involved with this brilliant and diverse event.
“Walking is an enjoyable and healthy way to travel. Bristol is already a city where a high percentage of its commuters choose to walk or cycle to work. I hope that this festival will encourage more people to walk regularly as part of their daily routine.”
Andrew Garrad, Chairman of Bristol 2015, said: “Bristol’s ambition is to become a world-leading city in active travel, where four out of five journeys under five miles are made by foot, bike and public transport. Events like this will only strengthen our efforts towards that goal so I’d encourage you take part and explore our city by foot.”
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