Re: ROW query.


"buddenbrooks" <buddenbrooks@xxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Jim Webster" <jim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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However the person may dispute that it is a foot path, which is more
common,

I thought that most rows were well documented now, my uncle back in the
50s and 60s was very active in walking and recording
rows and I doubt there is a row he had not walked down and recorded within
50 miles of his home villiage. He was a member of a rambling club which
spent much of its time ensureing rows were recorded and preserved.

at least one government agency has a policy of reopening 'lost footpaths',
and are trawling back in documentation acouple of centuries old trying to
find them. Some of them with damn all evidence.


and in this case, the matter may either have to go to the highways
authority, or the courts, or both.


As long as the land owner does not 'close the footpath pending resolution
of his dispute'

If I walk on a path for which I have a right then the 'opinion' of the
landowner has no legal status. Certainly physically restraining me from
walking on the path will get the landowner a mention at the local police
station, and maybe a letter from my solicitor to discuss the 6 months
wages I lost due to stress induced illness resulting from the assault.

but only if it is a path, if it isn't then it may be a case of trespass.
That would have to be decided first, and if the courts decided that the
person blocking the path had a reasonable case, then any further cases might
fall, even if the existance of the path was finally agreed. It could be an
awfully expensive process and the risk could be that the landowner is
actually correct and the path doesn't have a legal existance.

Actually even if it is a path, then there may be a case that any citizen
may take steps to close or block a highway where other citizens are in
danger, until such time as the danger passes. The courts have yet to decide
on whether Health and Safety regulation (European) takes precedence over UK
foot path regulation. However the point has been made several times to
various authorities that this might be an issue.


A lot of row's do seem ill placed . A local rail bridge near here is
closed on the country route I cycle on to work. The diversion is about 12
miles, which is excessive on a 7 mile cycle ride. The bridge closure is
total, the surface removed down to the arch.
There is a wide footpath, in fact capable of taking a tractor, so I pushed
the cycle down that. On the third side I took the farm's surfaced road
back to the highway. The last leg was not a row but avoided me pushing
through the farm yard and the house of the farmer which was. I assumed
that the farmer would prefer his privacy as preferable to exercising his
rights on the private road.

The problem is that the footpath network is being used for purposes it was
not designed for. In this area the footpaths run from village to farm, from
farm to farm, and from farm to church. Further up they run from village to
pit head and stop. The vast majority were never meant as either routes for
recreational walking, or longer distance travel between various urban
centres, but were purely for farm workers to get to work and rural families
to get to church.
A lot of landowning bodies have pointed out that the whole thing is in need
of massive rationalisation. I know of one case where a local council was
determined to force a footpath through, but have had to admit that it did
stop at the pit head and that actually passing beyond it to link up with the
nearest path would involve not merely a new path, but negotiating disused
mineshafts and probably a railway.
Similarly one classic was somewhere in the South East where a local
authority was intent of restoring a web of footpaths, that actually were
merely from a central hub (a wartime naafi and barracks) to scattered AA gun
positions. None of these paths actually led anywhere



I did wonder why he had not requested that the row was diverted away from
the dwelling/work area of the farm.

sheer cost probably, the RA tends to fight these automatically in some
areas.

Jim Webster






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