Consultation on amending CRoW Act for coastal land
Comments are invited on Defra's proposals to amend the CRoW Act. (Consultation / action request - posted 9 September 2009)
On 8 September the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) published its consultation on proposals to amend the Countryside and Rights of Way (CRoW) Act 2000 for coastal land.
This is the first step in putting in place the secondary legislation and documents which Natural England will need to start the ten year implementation process to deliver the coastal access provisions of the Marine and Coastal Access Bill.
The closing date is the 1st of December and all the documents can be found at: http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/coastal-access/index.htm
Staff will consider the documents released as part of the consultation and email a draft response to Area Access Officers as soon as possible. In the meantime Ramblers volunteers are invited to send any comments to the Walking Environment Team.
The new section 3A of CRoW, which will be the end result of the consultation, allows for access land to be designated alongside the new coastal national trail. How the trail will be implemented will be covered in a second consultation on Natural England’s Coastal Access Scheme shortly. A draft version of the scheme has already been published as part of the Bill process and can be found on the Natural England website: http://naturalengland.etraderstores.com/NaturalEnglandShop/Product.aspx?ProductID=637c346e-17ab-44a9-9c34-a2e491c67025
The Bill itself should receive royal assent in November after it completed its committee stage in the House of Commons before the summer recess.
