AN EIGHT year campaign to save ramblers from "running the gauntlet" on the A404 bypass was officially won last week, after Tory MP Theresa May opened a new pathway.

Mrs May officially opened the new footpath on Friday, June 17, which goes underneath the notorious bypass to take walkers safely towards Bisham Woods.

She was met by members of The Ramblers Association, council officials and more than 15 other organisations, who previously claimed they were forced to risk their lives by crossing the road, which had formed part of the old pedestrian route.

The opening comes in the light of eight years of disputes, warnings, a serious accident, a public inquiry, and even debates in Parliament before local authorities were forced to create a new pathway.

And Mrs May said it had been "a shame" that the process had taken so long.

She told the Free Press: "When they (The Ramblers Association) came to me with the proposal of a new route, it was just common sense and obvious but sadly the council didn't seem to think that way and went in the other direction.

"It is a shame it has taken so long because the A404 is so dangerous the idea that ramblers had to walk over that road was just silly."

The main campaigner for the new route was Margaret Bowdery, secretary of the East Berkshire Ramblers Association, who submitted a report on the safety of seven routes to local authorities in 1997. She said the group had been forbidden to cross the road by Thames Valley Police in 1997 amid fears for public safety, despite there being no formal system in place to stop walkers "running the gauntlet".

Her actions were praised on Friday when she joined parties for the opening, near a former flood arch underneath the A404, which gives ramblers the safe option.

In tribute to her, it was named "The Bowdery Archway".

She said: "It is so dangerous to cross the road.

"It is unbelievable the amount of time it took, it must have cost more than £100,000 with everything that went on."

One woman who was full of praise for the opening, was Barbara Lilley, 76, of Amersham ramblers, who was seriously injured when she was knocked down crossing the route in 1997. She is now unable to walk long distances.

"I was very lucky", she said.

The new pathway, from the Marlow Road in Bisham to Bisham Woods, joins several other routes and the section under the A404 is 50m long.