TV personalities have added their voices to a campaign launched by conservation organisations in a bid to prevent one of the country’s best-loved long distance walking routes becoming unsafe.

Thousands follow the Wainwright’s Coast to Coast path every year which is named after renowned walker and author Alfred Wainwright.

However, after 43 years, it has become a victim of its own success with stretches showing severe signs of wear and tear.

One of the worst areas of the 192 mile trail is near Nine Standards Rigg, which runs between Kirkby Stephen, in Cumbria, to Keld in North Yorkshire.

The ground has become so bad that mountain rescue teams have had to free walkers stuck up to their waist in boggy peat.

Now a new project initiated by the North Pennines AONB Partnership, together with The Friends of the North Pennines and the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, aims to raise the money to restore the path through a Crowdfunding campaign.

Presenter and walking enthusiast Julia Bradbury, and shepherdess and star of ITV’s The Dales Amanda Owen, are both supporting the campaign that, if successful will repair part of the famous trail that stretches from St. Bees in Cumbria to Robin Hood’s Bay in North Yorkshire.

Julia Bradbury, who walked the route as part of her popular BBC One series, said: “This type of fundraising tends to bring together like-minded people and fellow travellers who will support this particularly wonderful walk in any way they can and are lovers of our great British countryside.”

Money raised will enable the AONB Partnership to engage contractors to helicopter in stone flags to lay a new path, while staff and volunteers will re-vegetate the rest of the damaged peat.

To donate, visit crowdfunder.co.uk/raisingthestandard and for more information visit northpennines.org.uk