Bilbas two

Slow Way not verified yet. Verify Bilbas here.

A safe and improved version of BilBas One. The original route has a section along the Basildon ring roads which is impossible to follow safely - no pavement, crossing or even dropped kerbs at roundabouts.

BilBas Two avoids walking along the ring road going through the pedestrianised part of town instead. Further north on the outskirts of Bilericay there was a long section beside the busy A176 / Southend Rd. This route goes through Mill Meadows, a local nature reserve, just east of that road. Few of the paths there are visible on the main online maps which is probably why it was not used. Going through the nature reserve also makes it possible to approach Billericay along quieter Chantry Way a residential no-through road.

The Mill Meadows paths are shown on the reserve's own website. https://www.millmeadows.org.uk/our-trails There are likely to be many paths through the reserve, formal and informal, but the route uses the ones shown as "Mill Meadows Trails" on the map, so hopefully they are marked or signposted in some way. The route line was drawn by eye rather than snap-to-fit so it's only a rough match to the real positions.

There are several places to stop along the route, and multiple bus routes nearby. The attached map gives the idea including positions of some budget places to stay. Close to the central third in Great Burstead there's a Tesco Express and two pubs (on Southend Road about 200m and 400m from the route). Further south, but a little further off-route, there are a couple of eateries in a shopping park on Barleyfield Road which you can get to on E-W footpaths approaching from either direction.

If anyone walks this and finds the line of this route difficult to follow on the Mill Meadows paths I'd be happy to write up a new better route if I can get a GPX file of the route actually walked from a tracking app

A safe and improved version of BilBas One. The original route has a section along the Basildon ring roads which is impossible to follow safely - no pavement, crossing or even dropped kerbs at roundabouts.

BilBas Two avoids walking along the ring road going through the pedestrianised part of town instead. Further north on the outskirts of Bilericay there was a long section beside the busy A176 / Southend Rd. This route goes through Mill Meadows, a local nature reserve, just east of that road. Few of the paths there are visible on the main online maps which is probably why it was not used. Going through the nature reserve also makes it possible to approach Billericay along quieter Chantry Way a residential no-through road.

The Mill Meadows paths are shown on the reserve's own website. https://www.millmeadows.org.uk/our-trails There are likely to be many paths through the reserve, formal and informal, but the route uses the ones shown as "Mill Meadows Trails" on the map, so hopefully they are marked or signposted in some way. The route line was drawn by eye rather than snap-to-fit so it's only a rough match to the real positions.

There are several places to stop along the route, and multiple bus routes nearby. The attached map gives the idea including positions of some budget places to stay. Close to the central third in Great Burstead there's a Tesco Express and two pubs (on Southend Road about 200m and 400m from the route). Further south, but a little further off-route, there are a couple of eateries in a shopping park on Barleyfield Road which you can get to on E-W footpaths approaching from either direction.

If anyone walks this and finds the line of this route difficult to follow on the Mill Meadows paths I'd be happy to write up a new better route if I can get a GPX file of the route actually walked from a tracking app