On July 15 2023, Peter Lant went for a walk over Solsbury Hill with his dog Sid. It was the first official Walk Bath adventure. Fast forward to 2025, and Peter is doing that same walk, plus many others like it, with an ever-evolving group of up to 50 local people every week. India Farnham catches up with Peter to find out how a simple weekly stroll can build communities and transform lives.
All the best things in life are recurrent. Christmas, Sunday lunch, a morning coffee. It seems that regularity, as I discovered while chatting to Walk Bath founder Peter Lant, is a winning formula for building community.
Walk Bath’s weekly walks, which are currently completely free thanks to National Lottery funding, are a simple operation. After booking onto a walk via an app, walkers will head to one of the group’s meeting points (most often one of the three Park & Rides in Bath) for 9am on a Saturday morning. From there, Peter and his team of Walk Captains will split up the group and head off on a circular route in the countryside, bringing their party right back to the beginning for a high-five about two hours later. Peter assures me that if you’re comfortable with occasionally walking either uphill or through woodland, then you’re more than qualified to join the group; “As long as you can do that, then all you need to know is where we meet.”
The beauty of Walk Bath is that this happens, like clockwork, every single week. In other words: “You turn up at 9am on a Saturday, and we will be there”, as Peter tells me affirmatively. “People say, ‘you can go walking with your friends’, and it’s like, you can, but are they going to be there every week? Of course, [at Walk Bath] not everyone can make it every weekend, but 50 people came last weekend.”
Early days
Peter is originally from Newcastle, but moved to Bath in 2007. After being made redundant and getting a dog (Sid, now a regular member of Walk Bath), he started walking the hills routinely, and remembers feeling shocked that people he talked to in Bath didn’t know how close they were to the countryside.
“After lockdown, I’d be chatting to people and saying ‘we went for a walk up Solsbury Hill’. And someone would say, ‘where’s that?’, and I’m like, ‘well, it’s right there!’ you know? And then I started to realize that people drive everywhere, and they don’t know where anything is.”
Peter found that a lot of walking groups he’d seen advertised were for retired people, with walks taking place during the working day. This is where he saw an opportunity. “I decided to do the walks at 9am on a Saturday, so anyone of a working age could make it, too.
“So the first walk I did, it was just me and Sid the dog. And then we did it two weeks later, and it was me, Sid, my partner, and a lady and her boyfriend who I already knew.
“And then we did it two weeks later, and there was about five of us. And then we’ve just done it every week since then. And it’s just grown and grown. It just started to capture people, you know.”
Come rain or shine
Take a scroll through the Walk Bath Facebook group and you’ll see hundreds of photos of walkers smiling broadly in front of viewpoints or standing proudly on top of hills, the Bath skyline glimmering behind them. Peter lights up as he tells me where Walk Bath can be found venturing.
“From Lansdown, we’ll go over to Kelston Roundhill, North Stoke, Charlcombe Valley or Primrose Hill Woodland. And then from Odd Down, we’ll go down into Englishcombe village, or into Combe Hay village. From Newbridge, we’ll go to Newton St. Loe and Corston and along the river. And then we also do things in Batheaston, Solsbury Hill, Browne’s Folly, Dundas Aqueduct, everywhere.”
We may be descending into the colder, drizzlier months of the year, but Peter reassures me this doesn’t affect his walkers as much as you might imagine. “The weather is not as bad as you think it is. If you’re sitting in your house looking out the window, it looks terrible. But if you actually go out in it, it’s not as bad as you think. When you’re moving, everyone gets warm.”
In fact, these seasonal variations in the weather are part of what makes Walk Bath so special, Peter is keen to express. “We have a saying that you never do the same walk twice. You’ll do the same route, but depending on the time of year, it’ll feel completely different. Different colours, different sights, different sounds, different wildlife. But also, you never do the same walk twice because every time you do the same route again, there’ll be different people there to the last time you did it.”
Better together
It’s clear within moments of our conversation that the people who walk with Peter are the driving force behind what he does. At a moment in time when one in six of us worldwide are lonely (WHO Commission on Social Connection, 2025), Walk Bath’s innate ability to connect people is not lost on Peter. And 226 walks later, the results of Walk Bath’s latest survey speak for themselves: 69% of walkers found that the weekly walks have improved their mental health, and 49% stated that as result of the walks, they feel less lonely.
I ask Peter if these improvements in his walkers’ wellbeing have been noticeable? “Absolutely. We’ve got so many stories. There’s one lady in particular who came along because of social anxiety. I remember the first time I spoke to her, the conversation didn’t flow, whereas now she’s a different, more confident person.
“The great thing about walking and talking is that you’re not actually looking at each other. If you’re walking side by side, you’ve always got a bit of a distraction – you might see a kestrel or a red kite or a sheep or a deer. Distractions facilitate opening up, and talking about things you wouldn’t usually talk about.”
This proliferation of walkers feeling the benefit of social connection, along with Peter’s interest in philosophy, inspired the company franchise name Walking Solves, which comes from the Latin phrase Solvitur Ambulando, or ‘it is solved by walking’, a phrase associated with Greek philosopher
Diogenes the Cynic.
Now, it may not have been said by a Greek philosopher, but I grew up hearing my granny say ‘there are few problems that cannot be solved over a cup of tea’, so I can get behind this sentiment. Indeed, it seems Walk Bath is doing a lot more for its walkers than simply providing them with some easy-going exercise.
Anecdotes abound as Peter enthuses about walkers who moved to Bath and didn’t know anyone; others who were socially prescribed to the group; and people who have simply had difficult lives and walk away (no pun intended) from their engagement with Walk Bath feeling stronger. It’s as clear as day that Walk Bath is as much about being in nature as it is about giving likeminded people a place to gather together week after week.
The community goes beyond Bath. “There’s one guy who comes in from Paulton every week”, Peter notes. “He’s been coming for over a year, and he’s probably done about 65 walks now. We’ve got lots of people who come along in the beginning for one walk, and then just keep coming back.”
What’s it like for someone embarking on their first ever walk with Walk Bath then, I wonder? “Well, I think it can be quite intimidating, because it looks like it’s quite a big group”, Peter admits, “but what we tend to see is that after that person comes in, we welcome them in immediately, and then they’ll get chatting with someone and forget that it’s the first time all together. Everyone’s just really nice.”
Crucial to Walk Bath’s philosophy is celebrating participants’ achievements, however big or small. “We give out pin badges to people”, Peter explains. “When someone’s done 10 walks, they get a pin badge. So on that walk, we’ll do a little ceremony. And it’s a little goal for people to have. And then we’ve got one at 25 walks and then at 50, and there’ll be a one for 100 walks as well.” You don’t get many pin badges as an adult, do you? I muse. “Yeah, kids love it, but adults love it, too!” Peter laughs.
To the future
The success of Walk Bath seems naturally to point to a universal walking group model that could be successful in other localities. Peter can envision Walking Solves as a global community, one day. “What I want to do is have a walk on Saturday at 9am everywhere in the world. So, if somebody lives in Bath, but they go up to Manchester for the weekend, they can go on a walk in Manchester. Then you’ll meet people there, and you’ll get the benefit of local knowledge wherever you go”, he imagines.
I wonder if that branch of Walking Solves, somewhere entirely different from Bath, would be the same without Peter, its beating heart?
“Well, no, but it’s gone beyond me, and beyond the walks, even. They’ll have someone who understands that locality, who’s enthusiastic about that environment”.
And they’d be very lucky, too.
Fancy taking part, or getting more info? Find out more at walkbath.co.uk