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Bridging the Ribble

Ramblers, amblers horse riders and mountain bikers on the Pennine Bridleway National Trail will soon be able to keep dry while crossing the River Ribble – thanks to an innovative new bridge…

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Town & Country

Whether you like your walks out in the wilderness or in the heart of the city, the coming week should keep you busy – with National Parks Week coinciding with Love Parks Week and the Festival of British Archeology…

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Exmoor events this month

Ever wondered what kinds of creatures live in rockpools, or what exactly deer get up to at night? All will be revealed this month at Exmoor National Park, with a series of un-missable events to end the month…

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Is your local path under threat?

A new Ramblers campaign highlighting the nation’s most under-threat footpaths launches today, with 20 worrying situations across the country topping the list…

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Events

The Chiltern Way walking festival
 

The Chiltern Way walking festival

May-September

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Ramblers 75th events

June-August

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Milngavie Book & Arts Festival

7-12 September 2010

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Wessex Wanderer walks

Until 9 October 2010

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Mid Anglia Line walks

12 June-21 August 2010

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Tom Franklin

ramblers-south-downs06

Growing up in a village near the town of Sudbury in Suffolk, and with a strong interest in anything to do with trains, I was aware of a man called Dr Beeching from a young age. Sudbury’s station is at the end of the line. I remember my dad telling me how the track used to run on from Sudbury, connecting local villages, until in the 1960s Dr Beeching had closed it down on the grounds of efficiency. Today, one can only wonder how the railways would be different – and how car-use might be less – if Dr Beeching hadn’t come along.

Are we now about to see the ‘Beeching Axe’ fall on our public footpath network? With local authorities facing huge financial pressures, we’re starting to hear disturbing whispers about rationalisation. Questions are being asked about whether to focus money only on the so-called ‘honeypot’ routes, allowing the less-frequented branch lines to fall into neglect.

After years of sustained improvement in our footpaths across many parts of Britain, and at a time when walking for health is becoming more popular, that would be a tragedy. It is precisely the comprehensiveness of our footpath network which is so unique to Britain. For it to be most effective, the footpath network needs to be close to where people live and always useable.

The Ramblers is not against changes to the footpath network – far from it. Local Ramblers groups in England and Wales have worked closely with local councils in drawing up Rights of Way Improvement Plans, and in Scotland we’re campaigning for new path networks to link villages. There are many ways that the network can be improved: to provide missing links, ensure it is properly co-ordinated with public transport stops, and bring it closer to new housing developments. But we’re entering more dangerous times when there will be pressure for ‘rationalisation’.

So we’re launching an appeal to raise funds that mean we’re ready to fight any such moves (see p18). Just as importantly, we need everyone to be involved in reporting path problems – to their local Ramblers footpath officer and their local council. With your help we can help our footpaths avoid the same fate as the railway line beyond Sudbury.

Tom Franklin is chief executive of The Ramblers

  4 Responses to “Tom Franklin”

      At 3:25 pm on February 26th, 2010 Eric Fowler wrote:

    Having just retired from the post of Local Footpath Secretary, Mole Valley Distrrict, I can confirm that overstretched local authorities are under tremendous pressure to reduce their budgets for less important matters, such as rights of way. Politicians simply have no idea how much their briliant ideas cost the taxpayer. In their eyes, everything can be done in no time. Despite about five years of work on suggested improvements under the rights of way improvement plan, we are no further forward in Surrey because the council does not have the staff needed to actively progress the proposals. As the matter is the subject of consideration by Local Access Committees, a range of other campaigning groups are involved, so that it is very difficult to obtain concensus.

    That said, creation of footpaths and bridleways and arrangements for their maintenance are supposed to have been agreed between highway authorities, parish councils and landowners under the provisions of the Highways Act 1980, sections 25 to 30,. It seems to me that, for the less frequented paths, there is no reason why volunteers, organised by footpath guardians controlled by parish councils, should not agree to do some maintenance tasks, such as pruning around stiles, clearing seasonal undergrowth, etc and reporting back to officials, rather than simply losing paths by deletion from the definitive map. In any case, proposed extinguishments require formal action through the magistrates courts under the Highhways Act 1980, section 116. It is the lengthy bureaucracy required that slows the process down and costs the taxpayer thousand of pounds in litigation.

    As I see it, the way forward is to have proposals considered on the county Access committees on which all organisations with a legitimate need for countryside access wil serve, together with representatives of National Parks authorities, the National Trust, landowners farmers, foresters, etc. with a view to obtaining consensus. Costs of building a footpath are negligible compared with a bridleway or vehicular highways. Since 1835, it has been illegal to drive vehicles on unmade roads without the prior consent of the landowner and highway authority, which would be conditional on those claiming the need, funding their repair and maintenance. It became a criminal offence in 1930, so the notion that “off-road” driving without prior written consent is legal, is nonsense.

    Since 1991, highway authorities are supposed to have all the relevant information they require, to ensure paths are properly maintained, recorded on a Street Works Register, the term “street” being any description of highway, whatever. The register was introduced under the New Roads and Streets Works Act 1991 by the Street Works Regulations 1992 on 1 January 1993. Under Section 53 of the Act, anyone with good cause is entitled to inspect it at any reasonable hour. I believe it should contain a record of all persons contracted to perform street works necessary to keep footpaths and bridleways, as well as vehicular highways, in good repair. How many counties have introduced the street works register?

    As we are also taxpayers, are we all agreeable to see high increases in taxation,, rather than do a bit of maintenance workk ourselves?

      At 9:32 am on March 2nd, 2010 John Smith wrote:

    The most effective way to save our footpaths is to use them. A path that is neglected by walkers will surely be neglected by the local authority and indeed, how can you argue against wasting money on a resource that is not appreciated? This has always been a policy of the Ramblers, use the footpaths or lose the footpaths.

    The Ramblers must rethink their latest fashionable policy of being anti-car. Without the use of cars, most of our footpaths are not accessible. There can never be public transport suitable for getting us to those walks deep in the countryside. Even if local authority money was inexhaustible you just could not open all the local railway lines closed by Dr Beeching and you certainly could not imagine an adequate bus service in the narrow country lanes that lead to most of our countryside walks.

    People who really ramble know this; anti-car lobbyists who infiltrate our Ramblers organisation should get a friend to take them to a car park in a country lane at 10 am and see ramblers meeting, getting booted up and setting out to use the footpaths that are entrely inaccessible by any form of public transport. Those are the paths that will be the first to go if they are not used, so the interests of all ramblers would be served by encouraging their use and that means encouraging walkers to drive to them.

    Perhaps the fundamental confusion is between walking as an alternative to using vehicles, and rambling for the pleasure of outdoor exercise. I am all for walking in cities and towns and have done this rather than use a vehicle for decades. Of course, I first need to get to the city either by living there or by travelling on public transport to my starting point. I love to ramble in the beautiful Surrey Hills and of course I first need to get to my starting point, usually avoiding the few honeypot locations that are served by public transport. So I drive to the areas where I can enjoy those paths that will be lost by neglect. It will be my neglect and the Ramblers’ neglect, not the local authority’s neglect that closes these paths. The local authority will respond to local pressure.

    The Ramblers will accelerate the loss of footpaths if they continue the anti-car campaign that serves personal interests above those of ramblers. Only footpaths near towns and footpaths in overcrowded, eroded and denatured honeypot locations will survive. And what then will be the point of the Ramblers?

      At 10:57 pm on March 7th, 2010 Brian Wright wrote:

    The ramblers 50 + area agms are generally held in often remote village halls (budget costs), which can be very inconvenient to access by public transport from towns and cities, except by car. I have attended area agms in different parts of the country since the early 1980s, and only car owners (driving by themselves) tend to attend. As most ramblers live in the cities, it would surely be more logical to hold the area agms in urban halls? The afternoon agm is traditionally preceeded by a rural morning group ramble; but if this setup is only convenient for individual car drivers, where does this leave the millions of potential ramblers who cannot afford a car? The ramblers is supposed to be a charity, which should by definition cater for the less well off, not mainly those who can afford enough petrol to go anywhere, anytime they choose. Perhaps being a member of a charity, and benefiting from subsidised services, should be means-tested in some manner. Otherwise, these kind of leisure oriented charity services will be enjoyed mainly by the middle classes, who don’t really need them. The ramblers wants to be seen as a pressure group and as a charity. But are both roles always compatible? Is the ramblers now principally a cosy middle class service provider, for ageing white car drivers? If this is the ‘change’ that Tom Franklin is promoting, he either hasn’t understood or is ignoring the original ethos of the ramblers, which aimed to empower the urban working class to access the once forbidden countryside, forbidden by the landowning class who despised ramblers. The Labour Party’s access agenda was once at the heart of the ramblers, yet it now caters mainly for twee conservative retired clubs, who don’t support the ramblers access campaigns. Many area and group committees even complain that the ramblers is too political!!! These opposing priorities within the ramblers could soon be its undoing. Unless its remaining actively campaigning members grasp this nettle and stop the twee walks leaders from continuing to take over, the ramblers will become just another leisure group, and will loose its political clout within the Labour movement.

      At 10:30 am on June 8th, 2010 John wrote:

    A good example of a Right Of Way being alowed to decline through Council neglect over many years is that across stepping stones at Burley-in-Wharfedale. Although originally installed to control water flows, they acquired ROW status through habitual use. These are marked on the OS maps and walkers who have planned these into their walk can have a long detour. They should link footpaths north of the river to the ROW on the south providing a route to such as the lovely Washburn Valley, Nidderdale etc.
    A campaign is ongoing to have this ROW restored and a great help at this time would be any old photographs which showed the condition of the stones in the 1950s which the Council acknowledge they maintain. The full story is set out on the website http://saveourstones.webs.com. Photos should be emailed to saveourstones@hotmail.co.uk

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