Yorkshire Coast Passport Scheme Extended

More walkers taking on a famous route which passes through North Yorkshire will be able to record their progress after funding was provided for hundreds of Coast to Coast Walk passports.

The Coast to Coast Walk runs from St Bees in Cumbria to Robin Hood’s Bay and was first documented by fell walker and author Alfred Wainwright in 1973.

The pocket-sized passport has about 140 pages packed with useful information about places along the route alongside special offers from participating shops and retailers. Holders can get stamps from places they call into along the way.

A total of 16 elected members of North Yorkshire Council had funding approved through the authority’s locality budget programme to help with the production of more of the booklets.

Each of North Yorkshire Council’s 90 members has a budget of £5,000 each year to respond to local needs by allocating small amounts of funding to support activities to promote social, economic, or environmental well-being in the communities which they represent. 

Funding can be used for projects or undertaken by external organisations or for additional services provided by the council. Each member is responsible for determining how they wish to seek approval to promote and use the money from their locality budget.

Cllr George Jabbour, Cllr Carl Les, Cllr Yvonne Peacock, Cllr Heather Moorhouse, Cllr Kevin Foster, Cllr David Noland, Cllr David Chance, Cllr Andy Solloway, Cllr Clive Pearson, Cllr Karen Sedgwick, Cllr Eric Broadbent, Cllr Derek Bastiman, Cllr Steve Watson and Cllr David Webster awarded £300 each. Cllr Annabel Wilkinson and Cllr Peter Wilkinson awarded £400 each.

The Coast to Coast Passport scheme is operated by the Richmond Yorkshire Community Interest Company in association with the Richmond Information Centre. Walkers can order the full booklets online for £15.

North Yorkshire Council’s chair, Cllr George Jabbour, walked the route over the summer raising more than £4,000 for his chosen charity, the Yorkshire Air Ambulance.

He said:

“I am very grateful to all those councillors who have committed locality budget funding to this cause.

“The Coast to Coast passport gave me a structure to my adventure and a companion that I consulted regularly. 

“It allowed me to have a sense of accomplishment each time I collected a stamp and reached a milestone, which was a motivation factor to keep me going.”

Cllr Jabbour said it was also a useful guide to discover the shops, pubs and those who provide accommodation at the various stops along the journey.  

“This is particularly helpful for walkers who are completing the challenge for the first time and who are not familiar with what each village or settlement offers,” he said.

“I have kept my passport after completing the walk. It is a charming memento that brings back vivid and gratifying memories whenever I flip through its pages.”

The leader of North Yorkshire Council, Cllr Carl Les, said he was delighted to be able to support Cllr Jabbour in his efforts.

“The Coast to Coast Walk passport is a wonderful way to mark your journey across our county,” he said. 

“Each stamp is a memory to treasure, and together they tell the story of your walk. It’s not just about reaching the end - it’s about enjoying every step, meeting local people, and discovering the charm of North Yorkshire along the way.”

A director of the Richmond Yorkshire Community Interest Company (CIC), Donald Cline, said the funding will be used to assist with the production and marketing of the full passport in 2026 and also help the Richmond Yorkshire CIC to produce a new mini passport.  

Mr Cline said:

“We have done a lot of research with passport holders this year and many have said that it might be useful to offer walkers a truncated version of the full passport which was a bit less weighty.  

“The mini version is only 24 pages as compared to the full edition which is about 140 pages. If you are carrying all of your gear, weight matters!”

Mr Cline said that if funding was forthcoming, the Richmond Yorkshire Community Interest Company was hoping to produce a series of segmented Coast to Coast walks which will feature a two-to-four-mile section of the route that people can download for free.  

“This is designed to make the trek more accessible to ordinary walkers for whom doing the entire 195 miles is just too much of a commitment, both in terms of the time it takes to walk it end-to-end and the expense of lots of overnight accommodation,” 

Information about the Coast to Coast Walk in North Yorkshire and other walking, cycling and horse-riding routes can be found by visiting https://www.northyorks.gov.uk/walks-horse-and-bike-rides

For more information about the Coast to Coast Walk Passport scheme visit https://www.c2cpassport.com/