On November 8th the tank track was inspected with the hope of using it again for VHF NFD 2009,

Surprisingly the condition of the track is very good, there are a couple of areas that have become quite over grown to the point of not being able to take a car up through it without risking damage and one area where damage could be caused to the roof of a 4x4 by a low branch (about 7’ off the ground at its lowest point, I have taken several photos of the site and believe that with a team of 3 or 4 people the track could be cleared back in a couple of days to allow easy access. Looking at the track there is motorized traffic going up it and I would guess this is the farmer as there was live stock grazing around the track edge. Also, nowhere along the tank track was there any notice of SSSI being put in place however looking on the English nature website it would seem that the south downs from Clayton to Offham has an active monitoring being carried out on it, Keymer post was last inspected in 2002 however the field to the east of Keymer post was inspected last year (7th July 2008) and was noted that the ‘areas of scrub need to be cleared,

It was mentioned about seeing if access could be gained along the south downs way from Jack and Jill, Having walked the proposed route I can confirm that this would not be possible as that section of the track is very rutted and in some cases very narrow, should a car attempt to drive along the route extreme damage would be caused therefore as such the only option at present would be to navigate the tank track.

Below are some photos of the track, Please click on any of the photos to open a larger image.

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