Byway & Bridleway, the journal of the Byways & Bridleways Trust looks to the future, shifting publication from paper post to electronic delivery.
Byway and Bridleway, the Journal of the Byways & Bridleways Trust, goes electronic from April 2010 to enable the Trust to communicate efficiently and to continue with its work to protect and extend the byway and bridleway network across the country. After 31 years and 283 issues on paper, the Trust has decided to switch publication and delivery from printer and post to computer and e-mail, in order to achieve significantly better value for subscribers.
Byway and Bridleway keeps subscribers up to date on court cases, public inquiry matters, and other issues effecting our historic byway and bridleway network – a network that is sadly depleted, and needs your assistance via subscriptions to save the many miles of ancient routes from creeping neglect, obstruction, maladministration and occasional landowner greed. Walkers have a comprehensive network of footpaths and the ‘right to roam’, but for the riders and drivers of horses, cyclists, and motorists, there is recorded only a very disjointed network, many miles short of what was used historically.
Recording historical public rights of way is important because there has been no meaningful length of byways and bridleways provided through recent statutory creation; most new routes are footpaths. The historic routes are not ‘new’: they are public highways that already exist at law, even though they are not currently recorded as public rights of way.
Equestrians are particularly at a disadvantage when claiming these routes through recent use, since they are easily barred from any track. Unlike walkers and cyclists they cannot lift their horse over barriers, and are often tied to the local landowning fraternity for livery and horse feed. They are also subject to intimidation, so despite many claims starting out as user based, they are often ultimately won on historical documentation.
In remote rural areas, the number of equestrian users is often too small for the authorities to count them as being significant, despite a route being highly useful to an individual. When it comes to ‘need’, equestrians often have a greater need than walkers for a network, but they face the most opposition: landowners, walkers, parish councils and county councillors can all be lined up against them.
Most of these unrecorded historical routes exist on the ground, with interesting landscape features. Past generations used the most sustainable route for crossing the country and often built in drainage and surfacing which lowers the costs of bringing the route back into the public domain. They belong to you, the public, and we should not allow them to be privatised in 2026 when the infamous ‘cut off’ of unregistered public rights is due to come into force.
If you care about access to the countryside and our superb network of ancient highways please subscribe to Byway and Bridleway. Your subscription or donation helps the Trust with all its work towards accurate rights of way orders, in-depth research, and appearances at public inquiries. Find out more at www.bbtrust.org.uk, where you will also find many case and issues reports, and our comprehensive index to Byway and Bridleway, with almost 2,000 entries.
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Interestingly the BBT were opposed to the creation of the trail centres in Wales as they argued that as they are built for cyclists they should have also been able to accommodate horse users as well, and the technical nature of the trail centres obviously precludes them.
Alternatively you could always see the negative in everything.