GOVERNMENT-appointed expert Dr Victoria Edwards climbed Pendle Hill to see how an airborne rescue scheme is saving it from erosion.

Helicopters last year airlifted hundreds of stone slabs up the hill, which has been badly eroded by thousands of tramping feet.

The stones, reclaimed from old mills in Lancashire and

weighing up to half a ton each, were then laid along a half-mile stretch of the hill, and the scheme is nearly complete.

Dr Edwards, who is principal lecturer in land construction management at Portsmouth University, has just been appointed to the Countryside Commission - one of the sponsors of the Pendle Hill project - by Environment Minister Michael Meacher.

She travelled from Portsmouth to study the Pendle Hill project for her latest academic work. The scheme, devised by the Countryside Commission in consultation with local landowners and farmers, was based on an old road-building technique used by quarrymen.

As they transported rock to its destination, the quarrymen would drop stones along the route until the path was eventually built.

The £45,000 project was funded by the Countryside Commission, Lancashire County Council and Europe.

A spokesman for the Countryside Commission said work on the footpath was now nearly complete, and turfing and re-seeding around the stones would take place over the next two weeks.

"It is hoped that the footpath will last for hundreds of years and help to solve the severe erosion problems that Pendle Hill has experienced in recent years," the spokesman said.

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