There are many legal responsibilities placed on county councils, one of which is maintaining rights of way.
What are “rights of way”?
A public footpath, bridleway or access that (normally) crosses privately owned land but where the public has a legal right to use it.
Ultimately, responsibility for rights of way lies with the local highways authority – in our case Bridgend Council. In practice, town and community councils may play a role in maintaining or upgrading the most well-used rights of way.
Every 10 years, all highway authorities need to produce a rights of way improvement. BCBC also has a dedicated Rights of Way Sub-Committee. This sub-committee makes decisions on things like diversions of rights of way.
“The Definitive Map”
All rights of way within a highway authority area are included on what’s called a “Definitive Map”.
You still have to go to the Civic Offices in person to view the full legal version of Definitive Map, but most of it is now available online – here.
It was a bit slow to load for me but it does work. First, click on “What Would You Like To Do” in the top left corner, then “Map Features” then the black triangle next to “Highways”, then “Public Rights of Way”. They should show up as purple lines.
Rights of way can be added to (or removed) from the map if there’s proof they’ve been in use (or unused) for 20 years. The process involves a lot of paperwork, orders and declarations; none of that is BCBC’s fault, it’s the law.
The Pencoed Audit
Local resident, Stuart Bain, recently audited 37 rights of way in and around the town – which you can read more about on Facebook. His findings were recently presented to Pencoed Town Council. The town council agreed to seek further information on what rights of way are their responsibility.
He graded rights of way green (good), amber (unsafe/care needed) or red (blocked/dangerous).
As part of his audit, Stuart found:
- Only 38% of rights of way were deemed to be good.
- 62% were “unsafe” or not accessible. Of these, more than half were dangerous or difficult to use.
- Two informal/unofficial rights of way are not protected and are at risk from future development.
- Information about rights of way in the Pencoed area is outdated and many are not properly signposted.
Although this audit is restricted to the Pencoed area, there will be similar examples in your own areas; I can think of a couple in and around Bridgend town.
Is the law being broken?
Maybe, but it might be difficult to prove fault on the part of a county, town or community council and it could end up being an expensive thing to challenge in court – especially if it gets as far as the High Court.
There’s a legal obligation for BCBC – as highways authority – to maintain rights of way to a usable standard. That includes removing obstructions, making sure there’s nothing else preventing the public from using them and working with landowners to protect rights of way.
Of course, these things have to be reported and recorded. If the issues are minor, this may be taken up by a town or community council, with BCBC only getting involved to deal with bigger problems.
Use it or lose it?
Rights of way may sometimes be deliberately left to become unusable. Farmers – and other landowners – have long been accused of ploughing over footpaths, hiding signs and stiles or letting hedges overgrow.
On rare occasions, there may be good intentions behind it. Quite a few rights of way in the Bridgend area cross railways without any warning lights or alarms – including the South Wales mainline in and around Pencoed and Coychurch. I’m sure Network Rail wouldn’t mind seeing these put out of use or diverted.
So to conclude, there’s a “chicken and the egg” situation.
Some rights of way may be used by so few people that nobody reports an issue so they fall into disrepair. But it may also be the case that nobody uses these rights of way in the first place because they’re in such a poor state.
In that case, you can’t blame BCBC or town & community councils for focusing what resources they have on rights of way that are used regularly. Though it doesn’t hurt to keep tabs on the lesser-used ones too. We have an ancient right to use them and that shouldn’t be yet another thing taken away from us.
