Rights Of Way

[SLOWHAND]

Our club shares a field with the local Rugby club. It's a great partnership, we never get in each others way and we share the cost and work involved in keeping the field and facilities in good condition. On one side of the field (at our backs when shooting) is a hard pathway which is well used and the most obvious and quickest way to acsess and exit both sides of the field. On the other side of the field (the direction in which we shoot ) is according to one individual a 'right of way'.This hasn't been used in living memory and to use this means walking up one side of the field then negotiating bushes and tall grass and then walking down the other side, in other words you have to walk about twice as far as using the hard path. Now this individual has been in touch with the councill and demanded that this pathway is opened and accessible. If it is, we would not be able to shoot and the Rugby team may well have problems too. It would also cost the council thousands of pounds to do it.
Whats your opinion.

[JohnK]

Contact the council and ask them very politely to send a representative down to the ground on a club night. Show them where the path is and the problems that usage of said path would cause. Also, show them how unused and overgrown the path looks. Perhaps invite someone from the rugby club along to support you.

I believe there's a rule somewhere about rights of way that have fallen into disuse for a certain period of time losing their special status.

[bluebow]

It may be worthwhile checking a 1:25000 scale OS map of the area. This shoud have footpath rights of way marked (for England & Wales).

We have a similar problem at our club, where the correct right of way (footpath) does not affect our shooting range. However certain walkers and runners incorrectly assume that the right of way is alongside the river (across our the back of our range). Similar story - "I've been walking my dog along here for 30 years". It doesn't seem to occur to them that they may have been trespassing for all those 30 years. The correct right of way keeps outside our field and then joins to the riverside on the other side of the boundary wall to our field.

In our case the correct right of way is clearly marked on the OS map.

[Tarkwin]

See the Countryside and Rights of Way act..

S 59 gives the relevant authorities the right to divert footpaths,bridleways or highways...it sounds like this may have been done by installing the footpath.

don't take my word as difinitive...I'm not a solicitor...

have you got access to a recent map of the area? A right of way should be marked..

see also

http://www.naturenet.net/law/crow.html and

http://www.countrysideaccess.gov.uk/

T.

[whisky]

I've been involved with similar problems. You can get the council to reroute the path, before the red sock brigade decide to exercise their 'rights'.

The problem with tresspassers is that if they are not stopped and can prove they've had uninterupted use for a certain period they can obtain usage rights

[Random_guy]

Yeah, there was a thing on the news about something like this a while back, as i recall a guy built his house on a public right of way, and the council, despite giving him planning permission, hadn't done whatever was nessecary to re-route the path, meaning that by law he had to let walkers go through his living room for a couple of months! i think some prat took him to court about it too...

[Wrexham Exile]

rediculous.
surely this busy boddy can see the situation for themselves?. they may very well have been a right of way at some point in history - but people also used to live in caves and eat mammoths. but hey hoe thats change for you!

i cant see it being that much of problem. hopefully the council will back you up, especially as it already seems to have been diverted and the fact that it would cause more hassle to TWO sports teams for no apparent reason.

maybe the person is just crazy and believes if they dont walk around fields in a certain direction the world will end.

[simon m]

The council will have a rights of way officer.

He/She will have definative and above all UP TO DATE maps of the area.

If the path has been used behind your shooting line for as long as you can remember, i would suggest the council would consider (to reduce hassle) changing whats on the maps (if indeed the target end IS a right of way) to suit the usage of the field.

Definetely get it sorted ASAP the red sock communist party are good at mobilising quickley and without warning to get the old path re-opened.

They claim a "right to roam" but at a cost to the rest of the countryside users.

[Rik]

I've seen instances where a Right of Way has been removed, because it was disused or redundant. But just 'not being used much' probably isn't good enough, otherwise you'd get farmers, ploughing up and blocking paths all over the place and claiming subsequently 'they're not being used' (oh, hang on... You mean they do do that...? ).

I guess the main issue with re-routing the ROW would be the ownership of the 'hard path' and whether they would actually want it to be a ROW. Well, that, and churning through the beaurocratic quagmire.