22/01/2024
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Public Access in Kielder Forest - CLOSED until further notice.
Due to limited communications (no internet or phone in a lot of the area) we are only online patchy at the moment, here is an update on todays findings out in the forest.
Sadly Northumberland now has considerable damage in places from the last 24 hours and we are bracing for the next set of storm damage tomorrow Tuesday/ Wednesday.
We have trees down across recreation routes (not in the volume of storm Arwen we are pleased to report), however this time we have damage to trails and paths following tremendous volumes of water some of which flooded families homes in Kielder village.
Due to all the assessing and making safe the trails we ask the public not to visit Kielder Forest at this time and allow for the crews to check the trails and make safe. This includes the road up to Kielder Observatory which has new fallen trees across this route;.
Lakeside Way does have a number of trees blocking the route and also washed out section of trail also.
Forest roads into private dwellings is the priority and all day today that has been the priority ensuring emergency routes are reopened- this may need to happen all over again as more high winds are expected tomorrow Tuesday evening.
Rest assured our crews will be surveying routes and reopening as quickly as is safely possible- we expect trail disruptions to now last into early February and we will update more when we have the full extent of the recovery work that lies ahead.
the Lewisburn Forest Road is an example of the severity of the damage- in the image you can see the size of the rocks taken from the riverbed and left on the forest road during the floods!
We thank you all for your patience whilst we assess the routes in the coming days- we are working to have some trails reopen for this coming Friday/ this coming weekend.
