Walkers urged to help save historic footpaths before 2026 deadline

['mark@tlio.org.uk' mark@tlio.org.uk [TheLandIsOurs]]

Walkers urged to help save historic footpaths before 2026 deadline
Lost paths must be identified by government deadline to be added to
official record

by Patrick Barkham, The Guardian, 11th February 2020
Ref:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/feb/11/walkers-urged-to-help-save-historic-footpaths-before-2026-deadline">https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/feb/11/walkers-urged-to-help-save-historic-footpaths-before-2026-deadline

Walkers are being urged to help identify 10,000 miles of historic
footpaths that are missing from the map in England and Wales and could
be lost for ever.

All rights of way must be identified before a government deadline of
2026, after which it will no longer be possible to add old paths to the
official record.

The walking group Ramblers is calling on walkers, historians and map
enthusiasts to use its new mapping site to identify missing footpaths.

The online tool divides the official map into 150,000 1km squares so
users can compare historic and current maps side by side, spot any
differences and submit missing paths.

Once mapped, Ramblers will recruit volunteers to make applications to
restore paths to local authorities before the 2026 deadline.

Jack Cornish, the project’s manager, said: “Our paths are one of our
most precious assets. They connect us to our landscapes ­ ensuring  we
can explore our towns and cities on foot and enjoy walking in the
countryside ­ and to our history and the people who formed them oveer the
centuries.

“If we lose our paths, a little bit of our past goes with them. This is
our only opportunity to save thousands of miles of rights of way and
time is running out.”

Some lost paths are still in use, while others have become overgrown,
but all were omitted from the “definitive” maps of 140,000 miles of
paths that councils were required to draw up in the 1950s.
Ramble on: the fight to save forgotten footpaths
Read more

Some walkers are already applying to local authorities to recognise lost
paths but fear there are many more than the government’s estimate of
10,000 miles: a survey in Cornwall alone identified 3,000 paths that had
fallen out of use.

Paul Howland discovered a lost path called The Markway, in Hampshire,
which ends abruptly in some undergrowth. The path was temporarily
blocked during the second world war and by the time it was reinstated in
1956 it was overgrown and forgotten.

Howland has calculated that in his area he would need to make two
applications a week to register all the paths before 2026.

Under English common law, rights of way do not expire but the
Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 required all rights of way to be
recorded. The Ramblers is calling on the government to extend the
deadline for registering historic paths by at least five years.
[end]

Read also: Ramble on: the fight to save forgotten footpaths
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/aug/07/ramble-on-the-fight-to-save-forgotten-footpaths 



&Â  Memory lanes: the ramblers trying to save 10,000 lost footpaths
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/04/memory-lanes-the-ramblers-trying-to-save-10000-lost-footpaths






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Posted by: "mark at tlio.org.uk" <mark at tlio.org.uk>
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