Public Rights of Way and access - an insight nearly 20 years on
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Crises generate interesting effects. In the Public Rights of Way field this often brings opportunities. Birchill Access Consultancy entered the interesting world of Public Rights of Way Management just after the foot and mouth disease (FMD) crisis in the early 2000’s. Public access utilising public footpaths, bridleways, access land etc. had been prohibited across the country to prevent the spread of this awful disease and Public Rights of Way were closed on a large scale. I remember many at the time telling me how stressful this was in closing routes, the controversy this caused and the obvious impact on tourism and the economy. However, during the FMD outbreak the importance of the network to the economy was highlighted and following the end of the crisis much work focused around the well-known Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000. Many local authorities appointed large numbers of new public rights of way and access staff, and in 2003 I entered this fascinating area of work. Roll on to 2020 with Covid-19 and another national and worldwide crisis and we see a different scenario where lockdowns had the opposite effect, we witnessed a massive increase in footfall on public rights of way across the whole UK as many more people started using the network for exercise and simply to help keep their sanity intact.
Having worked both in public rights of way both for local government and, for the last 7 years, in consultancy and we have seen many changes over the 20-years. Initially in 2000 we worked in a very large authority in mid Wales with around 10,000km of public footpaths, bridleways etc. before moving to a smaller network in a more populated authority. In the beginning of the journey the task was huge and much of the network was not always in good condition. We processed more than 100 diversions of routes over 6 years and were constantly talking to farmers up and down the county, often much of it education about the many legal issues relating to access and as we found there were many misunderstandings about things to do with public rights of way.
Key milestones in our Public Rights of Way journey we remember are:
- The formation and legal requirement for Public Rights of Way Improvement Plans in the early 2000’s. This was a huge task which took several years and involved much consultation with user groups and discussion between team members but was a key strategic starting point for many local authorities becoming more aware of their networks and formulating action plans for the next 10 years.
- In the early 2000’s many officers were still dealing with a strange status of public rights of way called “Roads Used as Public Paths” which had an anomaly status that was never clearly defined. Many were reclassified as public bridleways although later, around 2015, any routes not already formally classified were automatically given the new status of restricted byways.
- We have witnessed various court cases and tensions as access usage and public expectations increased. In particular the higher status for Byways Open to All Traffic, routes which vehicles can use saw many routes badly churned up creating conflict with other uses and initiating court cases regarding maintenance and long-term management. Active travel has also become topical.
- From around 2005 working in Wales much work was focused on the All-Wales Cost path. Many coastal areas already had coast paths but there were large missing gaps in the network, and it was a big and challenging task to get the route completed around Wales in time. Now we see the English Coast path coming to fruition in large part of England as well. We have witnessed both the legal challenges of negotiation and creating new section of public access on coastlines as well as some of the pracital issues such as erosion.
- One of the biggest modern proposals in access was the “2026 Cut-off date”: the date by which applicants to register routes not currently on the legal Definitive Map. It is very recently (February 2022) that this date has been abandoned in England and Wales but saw a rush of applicants submitting routes for registration
Our consultancy work focuses on legal mechanisms and processes from clients wishing to divert routes to long winded disputes over existence, alignments of routes to strategic new access projects. We are expecting there to be increasing differences in how England and Wales operate and different nuisances in the legal processes. Some good things are sure to come out of streamlining certain processes by simple tweaks to bring us into the modern age such as better advertising of proposals using internet methods.
One thing that is for sure is that the Public Rights of Way field is never dull, ever changing and keeps us on our toes. It is likely that we will see more changes in the next few years and Covid-19 seems to have also been a catalyst for more change as Public Rights of Way have a key role to play in the wider arena of climate change, health and wellbeing, sustainable transport. We're now wondering what the next 20 years will hold?
Claire Goodman-Jones
Birchill Access Consultancy Ltd
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