Multi-use trail blazing through Queens Co.

Despite not being able to go through Liverpool directly, the Queens ATV association is forging ahead in getting a trail through Queens Co.

Brian Hatt, president of the club had a meeting with AbitibiBowater about using their lands to travel through Queens Co. late last month.

He says the meeting went very well, and there were no tough questions from the company.

The liability question is easily answered as well. The group has a $5million policy that starts as soon as the company signs on. The company can also retract permission if they no longer wanted the trail on their property as well.

The association is only asking for permission to use roadways and not the land, so in that sense it would be more of a right a way.

The majority of the new route on AbitibiBowater property would follow older roadways, many of which are not being used anymore.

The route would also it through sparsely populated areas, and not through downtown as originally proposed.

Instead, it will start at the Queens Co. border connecting to the old rail bed. The trail will follow that into Brooklyn, where it will then go along the new proposed route just north of Milton. It will then connect back onto the old rail bed just past Broad River and meet up with the trail in Shelburne.

Most of the trail will be at least 1 to 1.5 km away from housing, with some exceptions in Brooklyn and where they cross Highway #8.

Once permission is given, the association can start work right away. The majority of private landowners have agreed to allow the trail to go through their land.

There’s still a lot of work to do before it does become a full-fledged trial however. The first step is to get the trails cleared enough to get ATV’s in, in order to haul supplies. Hatt figures they can get the trails up to that state by year’s end.

Getting it to multi-use standards will take longer. The biggest challenge is building bridges over streams and rivers so as not to damage them. The Queens association will work closely with the specialist in waterways employed by the ATV Association of Nova Scotia. “The volunteers are raring to go,” says Hatt.

Hatt made the appeal in Sept. to the Region of Queens for the multi-use trial to travel along the old rail bed through Liverpool. Most councillors felt that would not work, although added they would like to work with the association on the possibility of getting a spur line into Liverpool.

By press time, Hatt hadn’t hear any more from the Region on that issue.

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