CTC – The National Cycling Charity
Calling offroad cyclists in the South Lakes – can you help with evidence which could mean an updgrade to a bridleway?

Have you ever cycled the footpath from Low Meathorp to Lindale (just north of Grange over Sands)?

If you have, or know someone who has, please drop an e mail with dates and number of times ridden to Nick.Thorne@LakeDistrict.co.uk as it is hoped to find user evidence to upgrade to bridleway status.
Thank you !
Like · · Share · 2 · 25 minutes ago ·

This always has me stratching my head, you can get a footpath upgraded, by telling the authorities you’ve ignored the footpath designation and used it as a bridle path 😉
Wots that about?
Can I apply for all the local footpaths I use?

Sorry to Hi-jack your thread, and good luck with upgrading it BTW

used it as a bridal path

you can get a footpath upgraded, by telling the authorities you’ve ignored the footpath designation and used it as a bridal path.

pretty sure if there is a history of unimpeded use you can get ROW upgrade to suitable level.

Something along the lines of if you let all and sundry take the shortcut through your garden between the bus stop and the shops for 20 years it could then become an official footpath.

…or something,
I (as you may have guessed)am not a ROW officer
🙂

how do you prove it was unimpeded though?

Its not in my area .I thought it might be of interest to some people on here.

Weeeell dunno, but at a guess if the landowner keeps putting up fences and the walkers/cyclists rip them down then that’s obviously not unimpeded but if the landowner didn’t mind and was ok with it’s use or just CBA preventing it then that’s unimpeded.

Dunno if it works the other way round, if council lets something get overgrown noone uses it then it can get declassified? Years ago a path near my mums between two houses, had a FP sign up, got overgrown never used seems to have been swallowed up now by someone’s garden now.

like I said just guessing, hopefully someone who knows something will be along in a minute

Hmmmm, theres a footpath on my commute that I’d like to reclassify, For 95% of my commute it’s a mix of gravel and tarmaced farm roads with about 400m of ‘footpath’ (>1m wide, well drained, but unsurfaced) at the end. There’s a gate with a stop on it to prevent it opening more than about 30cm at the end to impeed anything other than a walker. And at other points there’s a stile and a ‘MX gate’ (not sure what they’re called really, basicly a gap that’s narrower than handlebars so you couldn’t get a bike through).

No one’s ever stopped me riding it, but it’s not quite unimpeeded (stiles, gates etc). Is it worth contacting the ROW officer to get it upgraded and more usable gates installed? If it was upgraded it would provide an offroad cycling link between Wokingham and South Reading which has got to look good for the council.

Is it worth contacting the ROW officer to get it upgraded and more usable gates installed?

I think you need to prove it’s been in use for 20 years so unless you’ve had the same commute for a long time no, but if other people have been using it yes, maybe – i think.

quick google
. If a right of way has been used for over 20 years and without force, secrecy or permission (or to use the fancy latin phrase “nec vi, nec clam nec precario”) then a right of way could have been acquired. This is better known by the legal term ‘prescription’.

official legalese version

quite a few BWs round here are permissive/concessionary, I presume this is coz the landowner knows people are going to use the track so it’s an official temporary arrangement and they can still pull the plug if they want at a later date.

lets start a crusade to get all the lakeland footpaths reclassified.

lets start a crusade to get all the lakeland footpaths reclassified.

Strictly speaking, if a FP is being upgraded with an order – with evidence of use from cyclists – it will need to be upgraded to a Restricted Byway, not a Bridleway (as a bike is a vehicle, albeit a non-mechanically propelled one). See Subsection 2 of Section 68 of the NERC Act.

A recent court case (Whitworth) supports use by cyclists on an unrecorded route giving rise to a Restricted Byway. You can though use evidence of use from horse riders to upgrade a FP to a BW. I suspect the CTC’s message could have been chinese-whispered as their guidance is excellent.

The process is still the same though, but the Order might not succeed if the application refers to a Bridleway.

TINAS, it’s worth a shot. There could be something in your local Rights of Way Improvement Plan which sets out targets to upgrade FP’s to BW’s (by using a different Act from the OP’s case, so it’s either by dedication or compulsarily), especially if it creates a useful missing link.

[edit]

I wouldn’t worry too much (yet) about the whole without force / secrecy / permission issue, as that burden is for the landowner (if that point is that which they chose to dispute the order on) to prove, not the user.

And yes, there are a fair few permissive BW’s around now purely because landowners are happy for bikes / horses to use certain routes, but don’t want to be stuck with a legal route in 20 years time, and if they can prove use is prevented, for example on one day a year, then the permissive route can be kept forever.

I too was told this by Derbshire CC when investigating how to get a local FP upgraded. Cyclists can only apply for upgrade to Restricted Byway status provided they can gather witnesses to suggest the route has been cycled for long enough.

Only horse riders can apply for upgrade to Bridleway status.

Bonkers, like many of the arbitrary decisions made years ago on the Definitive Map. Think I’ll just carry on riding it, as that is what the nice lady from DCC told me to do anyway!

So a positive effect of Strava will be that in about 18years we will have definitive evidence to apply for thousands of FPs round the country to be upgraded?

I think 2026 maybe a key date here . Capping definitive map. Lost track a bit of late so I may be wrong.

J-R – Member

So a positive effect of Strava will be that in about 18years we will have definitive evidence to apply for thousands of FPs round the country to be upgraded?

🙂

mattsccm – Member

I think 2026 maybe a key date here . Capping definitive map. Lost track a bit of late so I may be wrong.

Exactly, a lot of people are surprised how soon 2026 now seems.

To explain, the CROW Act gave 25 years to add routes not already recorded on the definitive map (i.e. pre 1949 ones) or they’re lost forever. Half way through and pretty much everyone realises its not enough time, and it forms part (the first four questions of the summary of responses) of the recent consultation on improving RoW legislation.

^^ It’s a very interesting point about Strava – I can’t think of better evidence of use than the saved results / segments, so presumably yes, there’ll be a mass of applications for RB’s around 2030 or whenever 🙂