Environment Food and Rural Affairs written question – answered at on 3 March 2011.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pursuant to the answer of 20 January 2011, Official Report, column 922W, on cycling: access, what estimate she has made of the change in the distance of rights of way in England in each of the next five years.
No estimate has been made on the likely change in the quantity in distance of public rights of way in England for each of the next five years. The measurement and recording of public rights of way is the responsibility of local highway authorities.
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Sue Hogg
Posted on 4 Mar 2011 3:46 pm (Report this annotation)
The previous government introduced a cut-off date of 1 January 2026 for recording historical rights of way on the definitive map(CROW Act 2000). At that date, any unrecorded rights will be extinguished.
Promised funding for the voluntary sector to carry out research and submit claims to local authorities to get the missing rights recorded was diverted by the Countryside Agency into a commercial contract which cost £8.5 million and achieved nothing.
The cut-off date remains, but the present government and the local authorities, who are responsible for recording rights of way, appear to have no strategy for completing the definitive map by 2026.
Eleven years have passed since the CROW Act; only 14 years remain before the cut-off. That may seem a long time, but not in terms of getting rights of way recorded.
A coherent coordinated programme is needed now to ensure that our historic routes are preserved for future generations.