Recommendations for flail or scythe

[doobin]

Strimmer is what you need, so you can lift it up and bash back the sides a bit too. Maybe hedge cutter and spring fork for clearing sides also. A bcs flail is pretty hopeless for this sort of work, brambles tend to grow in from the sides so it just won’t grab hold of them. Also it’s a rubbish flail, something like a scag or ferris is in a different league for productivity 

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, Stere said:

The local footpath volunteer group has a BGS flail i think, and use chainsaws and strimmers etc not sure how insurance works.

A user is only allowed to remove an immediate obstruction, not to maintain the full width of the right of way, which is the highway authorities duty if the path is adopted (normally being fenced in either side means the HA have consented to the enclosure and become responsible for the vegetation on the surface).

 

I am a local volunteer path warden and not allowed to use power tools unless on an organised work party with risk assessments and warning signs plus a banksman. On my own I can only use hand tools and cut branches only up to 50mm.

 

Then there are guerilla tactics...

[woody paul]

You would also need to know verges are not protected some times of the year, maybe why they are cut September after ground nesting birds have finished. 

[flanagaj]

10 hours ago, Stere said:

The local footpath volunteer group has a BGS flail i think, and use chainsaws and strimmers etc not sure how insurance works.

 

Hardly any bridle paths round here though and majority of footpaths say around 75% of them are completely overgrowth and not useable.

 

Not gone on any footpaths since covid lockdown & the only thing that was keeping many them open I reckon is regular use.  I carried a pocket silky, and loppers sometimes to hack through encroaching scrub and head height brambles.

 

Such a shame.  Bridleways and footpaths hold hundreds if not thousands of years of history.  See an ancient oak tree on a bridleway and thinking the sights that it saw is fascinating.  Well, to me anyway.

[Peasgood]

22 hours ago, flanagaj said:

Blimey.  I'm too old for a manual scythe!

I'm a fat 56 and prefer my scythe to any strimmer. Austrian style with ally shaft, pretty effortless and completely silent.

[Dan Maynard]

Such a shame.  Bridleways and footpaths hold hundreds if not thousands of years of history.  See an ancient oak tree on a bridleway and thinking the sights that it saw is fascinating.  Well, to me anyway.

I'm reading Oliver Rackham's History of the Countryside. Thousands is the most likely answer, depending on where you live a swathe of the country was replanned but even then many of the ancient paths remained.

[flanagaj]

1 minute ago, Dan Maynard said:

40 minutes ago, flanagaj said:

Such a shame.  Bridleways and footpaths hold hundreds if not thousands of years of history.  See an ancient oak tree on a bridleway and thinking the sights that it saw is fascinating.  Well, to me anyway.

I'm reading Oliver Rackham's History of the Countryside. Thousands is the most likely answer, depending on where you live a swathe of the country was replanned but even then many of the ancient paths remained.

I'll look that one up ?. 

[Stere]

Quote

I'm reading Oliver Rackham's History of the Countryside. Thousands is the most likely answer, depending on where you live a swathe of the country was replanned but even then many of the ancient paths remained.

 

 

 

 

Iv'e read some his other books on  woodlands etc.

 

Really good  insights into conservation & plantations history of woodland management.

 

Quote

Such a shame.  Bridleways and footpaths hold hundreds if not thousands of years of history.  See an ancient oak tree on a bridleway and thinking the sights that it saw is fascinating.  Well, to me anyway.

 

Yeah    many have long histories.

 

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