Long standing followers of Hidden Wiltshire will know that we are keen on walking in Wiltshire. It’s how we reach many of the most hidden gems in our county, and how we are able to share them with our readers and podcast listeners. You will also know that we are passionate about preserving our rights of way and opening up new ones where possible. But you may have detected an increasing note of concern in our publications about the alarming number of rights of way that we encounter that have been illegally blocked or rendered impassable by landowners. This is clearly not just something that we are concerned about. The Autumn 2024 Oen Spaces Society magazine, Open Space, says “Wiltshire has an epidemic of byway blockages.” It refers for example to numerous applications to Wiltshire Council to stop a farmer in the Wylye Valley unlawfully ploughing and cropping two byways as well as blocking one with a set of gates. Apart from finally having the gates removed Wiltshire Council has taken no action on the other reports.
We all know of the financial pressures councils across the country are under. Between 2010–11 and 2019–20, central government funding for councils was cut by 55% in real terms (source: Institute for Fiscal Studies June 2024). According to the Local Government Association councils in England face a funding gap of £6.2bn over the two years from 2025/26. So local authorities have had to make some difficult choices and this has included prioritising spending and sadly making redundancies. So is it any wonder that councils, including Wiltshire, are short staffed? I know from my own conversation with two members of the Wiltshire Council Rights of Way team last year that there are only six of them to cover the whole county, including Swindon. When so much of councils’ budgets are taken up by meeting their statutory responsibility to provide social care, protecting rights of way probably falls some way down their list of priorities, despite the indisputable long-term benefits to both the physical and mental health of the population of taking exercise in the outdoors. But if you’re busy fighting fires, the process of re-building sometimes has to wait.
In the meantime is it too controversial to suggest that a small number of irresponsible landowners, fully aware of council staffing issues, are taking advantage of that fact? After all, the chances of their receiving an enforcement notice to reinstate a right of way are slim. Over the years we at Hidden Wiltshire have submitted numerous reports to Wiltshire Council of blocked rights of way. Only on one occasion have any of them been addressed. Mostly they are just quietly removed from the database. Personally I have had more success approaching estate owners direct. The thumbnail picture to this article shows a gateway to open access land illegally blocked by a tenant of Wilton Estate. To their credit once I made them aware of it the estate had a kissing gate installed. I had a similar experience with the Rushmoor Estate who had incorrectly put a sign by a gate into Rotherley Bottom to say there was no public access into this area of Open Access. Once I alerted the estate office they were very apologetic and undertook to remove it. I’ve taken them at their word that they have.
But there is another problem for councils. In an attempt to provide certainty, the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (CROW) contained a deadline of 1 January 2026 after which any applications for historic (pre-1949) rights of way to be recorded on the definitive map (the definitive map held by councils recording rights of way) would be lost forever if they had not been recorded by that date. As the date loomed nearer, in February 2022 the Secretary of State committed to repealing the cut-off provisions which would take the heat off the drive to identify and record historic rights of way. However, in March 2023 the Secretary of State announced her intention not to repeal the date but to use the powers in the CROW Act to extend the deadline to 2031. Almost overnight interested bodies such as The Ramblers and The British Horse Society rushed to identify and apply to local councils for these historic rights of way to be reinstated and recorded on the definitive map. According to The Ramblers there are 41,000 miles of lost paths in England. This figure increases to 49,000 miles if you include Wales but the Welsh Government is taking steps to repeal the legal provisions that implemented the 2031 cut-off date. So in addition to the overwhelming workload of ensuring existing rights of way are kept clear, councils are now faced with a looming deadline of 2031 to validate and record all these new designations. I was told it would take Wiltshire Council 90 years to process all applications with their current level of resource, and meanwhile if the historic rights of way aren’t recorded on the definitive map by 2031 they will be lost forever, notwithstanding the fact that they have received the applications from members of the public. Lost forever for the sake of a deadline.
If you want to see the map of lost paths in your area you can do so using this link:
Let’s take stock for a moment. The picture so far is of an alarming increase in the number of blocked rights of way, poorly resourced local authorities ill-equipped to deal with it, and an explosion in applications for historic paths to be recorded on the definitive map. A perfect storm for anyone who cares about access to the countryside. Now many I’m sure will argue that there are plenty of rights of way so we just need to find another route. But from your reading of Hidden Wiltshire blogs and from your own experience, certainly in Wiltshire, encountering blocked rights of way is now normal. As The Open Spaces Society said the problem is of epidemic proportions in Wiltshire. How many blocked paths does it take before it becomes too many? It seems we are at the mercy of the whims of those few unscrupulous or simply careless landowners for our access to the countryside. And whilst I’m not in any way suggesting he is either of those, I found today that a local farmer has put up a sign on a farm road that he has allowed people to use for at least twenty years saying that there is no public access. Thousands of people have walked this road over that time, but no more.
What can we do about this other than for England to follow the Welsh example and remove the deadline for recording lost paths? That at least would relieve councils of some pressure, although a cynic might conclude that some councils have already decided that historic paths are not a priority. Certainly many have shown little or no progress on this.
So, what if England were to follow the example of Scotland and many other countries in adopting a policy of land reform that includes a presumed and responsible right of access to all land other than private gardens and cultivated land? In England we only have a right of access to 8% of the land, and uncontested rights to 3% of our rivers. That includes “access land” which was opened up in 2000 under the CROW Act and which encompasses mountains, moors, heaths and downs that are privately owned. But what if we could access more forests and woodland? The Forestry Commission dedicated its woodlands for access to all under the CROW Act. Could the private owners of woodland do the same? And what about water ways? To quote the Open Access Society again “There is scope for greater access along riverbanks and beside lakes and reservoirs, following the model of the England Coast Path which has alongside it an area of access land stretching down to the shore and inland to the nearest boundary. Kayaks and canoes should have rights of access on rivers, and there should be legal means of access to the water.” And anyone brave enough to swim in our rivers.
Of course with rights come responsibilities. Just as landowners have responsibilities so do the public accessing the land. Scotland revised and heavily publicises its own countryside code. But how many people are aware of or can quote from the English version? It should be ingrained in anyone accessing the countryside. And maybe if we understood the countryside and the needs of farmers better we would value it more and help them take care of it?
I know England is different to Scotland. The population density is much greater but the exclusion of private gardens and cultivated land would actually remove a lot of land from this wider access. And if we could walk along a field boundary instead of demanding our right to follow a designated path across the middle of a field of crops that would mean the farmer wouldn’t have to worry about keeping that path clear, so long as the boundary was navigable. The wider access would also reduce pressure on and the erosion of the narrow corridors we currently have to follow.
We have an example of wider access to land right here on our doorstep in Wiltshire. Large tracts of Salisbury Plain, owned by the MOD and used by them for training, have open access. In certain areas we are free to walk wherever we like. Much of this area is also leased to tenant farmers who have coexisted with the military and members of the public for 100 years or more. For the avoidance of doubt this does not include areas where there is live firing or which are otherwise subject to red flags, and nor does it include woodland. These areas are where I have done the majority of my walking over the last 30 years. Rarely do I see any litter or other damage to the environment caused by the public, the reason given by many for not allowing us greater access to the countryside. Since what little human traffic I see is spread out over a huge area rather than being channelled down narrow corridors, as walkers we can easily leave no trace whilst cyclists (of which I am also one) and horse riders must stick to tracks made up for that purpose. As for the argument that we already have plenty of public rights of way, I have already set out the reasons why those are under threat.
In conclusion we have a picture of increased pressure on our rights of way; local authorities who simply don’t have the resource to defend them on our behalf; and a tidal wave of applications to restore historic rights of way to the definitive map piling even more pressure on our councils. Alongside this we have an increasingly unhealthy population putting more pressure on public bodies such as the NHS and the care system. A presumed right of RESPONSIBLE access to all land apart from private gardens and cultivated land might just provide one solution, also enabling this Government to meet their predecessor’s commitment to improving access to green space for everyone. It might also be a stepping stone towards wider land reform but that really is a much bigger and potentially even more controversial subject!
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