That this Council of the Ramblers deplores the failure of almost all highway authorities to carry out their statutory duties in making sure that field edge paths are left unploughed and that paths across fields are reinstated after statutory ploughing. This Council calls upon its Area and Group organisations to oppose diversions to field edges where their local highway authority does not carry out the above statutory obligations.
That this Council resolves that making a tractor line across a ploughed field is not sufficient to define the correct routes of a public right of way.
(a) It does not differentiate the public path set of tracks from other tractor lines in the same field.
(b) In wet conditions it is impossible to walk in tractor ruts which in any case are not the correct width for a cross-field path.
This Council calls upon highway authorities, when drafting policy documents, to state that tractor lines alone across arable fields are not adequate to define the line or width of any public right of way.
This Council suggests to highway authorities that they should put some permanent notice where rights of way have been diverted or closed. The notice should give information about the direction and distance in which the path can now be found, if diverted.
It also seeks legislation to require such notices to be in position for a minimum of 5 years after the Ordnance Survey has published maps at 1:25,000 and 1:50,000 scale showing the effect of the change and for the relevant Acts—Highways Act, Town and Country Planning Act, etc—to make it a condition that where a path is re-routed it is permanently signed and waymarked.
This Council deplores the practice of councils which promote or condone unofficial rights of way diversions thereby undermining the credibility and authority of the definitive maps. We also deplore the increasing use by highway authorities of Countryside Commission grant-aid to finance these diversions, giving them a credibility which may become permanent at the expense of nearby legal rights of way. Council calls upon H M Government to issue a directive to highway authorities, reminding them of their legal responsibilities to protect definitive rights of way and resist illegal diversions.
