Rights of way appeal upheld
The Government has upheld an appeal to secure several rights of way across the Marquess of Camden’s estate, after more than 50 years of campaigning by local Ramblers. The case, though, is likely to go to a costly public inquiry later this year. The owners of the centuries-old Bayham Abbey, on the Kent and East Sussex border, have refused to recognise any footpaths over their estate since Ramblers first attempted to register routes on the council’s definitive map in the 1950s. In the 1980s, following decades of further failed applications by the Ramblers, the Marquess began selling off parcels of the estate and preventing public access. A final application to register the footpaths was put together by Tunbridge Wells Ramblers in 1998, offering plenty of evidence required to prove the routes had a history of at least 20 years’ public use. It took seven years for the county councils of Kent and East Sussex to process and reject the claim. But the result of a recent High Court ruling over another footpath dispute has undermined the councils’ decision, and now the Secretary of State – on appeal from the Ramblers – has directed them to add the two footpaths to the definitive map. For the latest progress on the case, visit www.ramblers.org.uk/rights_of_way
