Thanks for your input Alan - it's much appreciated. I began discussions with Sustrans several months ago.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in addition to many local community service initiatives which are undertaken, have an annual "Helping Hands Day" when members throughout the whole country are encouraged to be involved in a community service project.
LDS Church leaders in Scotland have a desire for a project which would be Scotland-wide and I came up with the idea of Sustrans cycle routes, after discussions with many other National charities eg National Trust, Woodlands Trust, Marine Conservation Society, etc. etc. The idea was that we would tackle a clean-up programme on those parts of the cycle routes which were identified as needed attention. I realise that local authorities have some responsibilities for the track, and there are, as you rightly say, Sustrans 'wardens' to monitor the cycle routes. Sustrans themselves suggested a few locations throughout Scotland - one of which was the area at Canal Street Station, Paisley - but, considering I have LDS Church members from Thurso to Stranraer and Dumfries to Aberdeen I have a potential workforce of about 400 able-bodied people to make an impact of some worth.
However, from what I'm being fed back, contrary to what Sustrans told me, the problems are nothing like what I'd been led to believe.
I wish I had contact people in cycling clubs the length & breadth of Scotland who would ride the various routes as part of their training schedule - or simply for fun - and would report back to me problems on the routes. I am having great difficulty getting this information from our LDS congregations (what does that say about their involvement with cycling?).
It may be that I now have to reconsider our Scotland-wide comunity service projects. The date designated for Helping Hands Day this year is Saturday, 23 September. This is the date for such projects throughout the UK and western Europe.
The LDS Church was possibly the single biggest contributor to the annual 'Make a Difference Day' which is always on the last Saturday of October.
However, now we have our own "Helping Hands Day", most of our manpower is expended that day.
The whole idea is do be engaged in service projects which will really make a difference to the community, be fulfilling for those volunteers involved, and
hopefully be of lasting worth. The projects ideally will be in centres of population to allow us to advertise for local people to join us in volunteering their time and talents on specific projects.
If you have any suggestions as to projects which will fit the bill please let me know.