What is P3?
Cambridgeshire County Council works in partnership with a range of local parishes to maintain, improve and promote the public rights of way network within individual parishes.
The scheme is called the Parish Paths Partnership (P3), and parishes that are members receive support from Rights of Way Officers based at the County Council. Grant-funding may be available from Districts for work on public rights of way (currently only in South Cambridgeshire).
Below is a list of all parishes involved in the P3 scheme this year.
Parishes in P3 2011.pdf (13Kb)
Background to scheme
The Cambridgeshire Parish Path Maintenance Scheme started in 1988. This encouraged parish councils to take a more active role in the upkeep of public rights of way. This scheme formed the basis for the Parish Paths Partnership, which was launched in April 1992. Partnerships were formed between the County Council and the District Councils to help deliver improvements at parish level.
The 'Big Society' / 'Localism' agenda is now recognising the value of local involvement in service delivery. Financial pressures mean that grant funding is now more difficult, but the County, Districts and Parishes continue to work to secure the future of this valuable local scheme.
Guidelines for the P3 scheme were updated in 2011. Printed copies are available to parishes, and an electronic version is linked from this web page.
Additional guidelines have been produced specifically for volunteers undertaking waymarking.
P3 Web Forum
A web forum was set up at the end of 2011 to help P3 members to communicate. For further details see the linked page.