Countdown 2026
Unless
action is taken to stop it, in 2026
an unprecedented removal of public
rights will take place and thousands
of rights of way will be lost
forever.
Many of the public rights of way
under threat are used every day and
some are British institutions, being
part of much-loved national trails.
In fact, it's even possible that a
path you've been using for years to
get to the shops or walk the dog is
on the hit list.
What we're doing about it and
how you can help
We're lobbying Government to get
the law repealed. You can help by
signing our petition on Number
10 Downing Street website.
Countdown 2026 briefing
In 2000 the Government passed a
law following pressure from
landowning groups which says that
all public rights of way which:
a) came into existence before
1949; and
b) have not been formally recorded
as rights of way by 1st January 2026
will be extinguished on that
date.
It's been estimated that around
20,000 public rights of way are not
formally recorded, and many of these
were established centuries back,
long before 1949. If these rights of
way are not recorded by 2026 the law
says they'll be extinguished
forever, meaning nobody will have a
right to use them. Even if the
public has used an old, unrecorded
right of way for centuries, and
continues to use it right up to 1st
January 2026, the owner of the land
will still be able to turn people
away on that date, or gate it off.
The landowning lobby pushed hard
for the law to end the process of
recognising historic rights of way,
arguing that it only be a tidying up
exercise, which would remove those
rights of way which have fallen into
disuse over the years and are no
longer physically visible on the
ground. But the law goes much
further than that: it threatens all
unrecorded, pre-1949 rights of way,
many of which are well-used and
celebrated, like parts of our
national trails.
Because of the potentially
disastrous consequences for rights
of way, the Government
simultaneously introduced the
Discovering Lost Ways Project, a
scheme to record as many unrecorded,
pre-1949 rights of way as possible
so as to save them from the effect
of its law. But the project proved
far too complex and cumbersome and
the political will to see it through
evaporated. We think discontinuing
the project but keeping the law is a
bad deal for the public.
We think the 2026 'cut-off date'
is unfair to the public and a bad
idea. Whilst we agree that there may
be some old, unrecorded rights of
way which are no longer useful for
getting from A to B, they may
nonetheless have the potential forma
pleasant recreational route. The
fact that some rights of way are no
longer visible because they have
become overgrown does not
necessarily indicate that they are
not valuable to the public - many
rights of way become overgrown and
invisible because they have been
illegally obstructed for a long
time, and the public has never been
able to use them. The point is they
belong to the public.
You need to check a document
called the
definitive map which is held by
your local authority. You can
arrange to see the definitive map
for no charge during normal office
hours and some authorities may be
able to show you an online version.
If a path is shown on the definitive
map there's no need to worry - it's
safe. If it isn't shown you should
make an application to have it
recorded on the map as soon as
possible, because if you don't and
the right of way has existed since
before 1949 (it's not always
possible to find this out for sure)
it will be lost forever in 2026.
By making an
application to have it recorded as a
right of way. To do this you'll
need evidence that the public have
gained a right of way over the path,
which might be user evidence or
documentary evidence, or both.
Contact
Janet Davis to find out more.
