Evening all,

After a bit of advice on who to contact about a local trail. It is marked as a Bridle Track, with the correct signage and its on OS maps also, but have recently seen sign’s nailed to tree’s saying

“Private Property, Trespasses will be prosecuted”

This has also happened on a local Public footpath.

My question being, who do i contact in regards to this??? Not knowing the landowner, is it something i should contact my local council about?

Ta

If the trails haven’t actually been been blocked, and you haven’t been stopped by the land owner then it’s not worth contacting anyone imo.

Yes, your local council will have a Rights of way (ROW) officer if the trail is blocked or impassable.

As for signs – how about this one?

I like that one. We need more of those.

Don’t really see your issue here – as long as you can still access the bridleway

It’s a bit like those signs that some people put up outside of their house ‘NO PARKING’

There is a very similar sign attached to a footpath sign near me except it specifically mentions horses not bikes. It is an official council sign stuck to an official council footpath sign but where does that leave us? If horses are allowed on a footpath are bikes automatically allowed as well? What I suspect is that the council have given in to pressure from a certain horse riding society who seem to have a lot of clout locally, Daddy a lawyer? I don’t think there has been a confrontation yet but you have to wonder about the legal implications of the sign.

It’ll just be your local Tory MP demonstrating his respect for the plebs who had wanted to use the rights of way on one of his estates.

you commit no trespass if you are passing along the bridleway/footpath. If you loiter or deviate from the path/wander around off the path then you are trespassing. Maybe thats all the signs are emphasizing.

As for being prosecuted, fat chance. Their only remedy is damages for losses which would be minimal unless you’re salting the earth behind you, “prosecuted” just looks more superscary.

Check the Definitive Map at your Council offices, you may find it online if you’re lucky. More accurate than OS maps.

FOG – the landowner can give explicit permission for anything, but I doubt you could gain any implicit permission from it. They may allow horses to use a footpath across their land and quite legitimately not extend that invitation to MTBers.

The confusing thing for me was that it was a council RoW Dept sign and I believe the land is council owned. Can the council be as picky as a private landlord or do they have to treat groups equally?

“Private Property”

No surprise since all property is, by definition, owned by someone.

“Trespasses will be prosecuted”

A lie; trespassing can’t be prosecuted.

Since following a right-of-way is not trespass, ride-on and if the land owner gets nasty with you, give them a deadline to remove the sign, delivered with a complete b0ll0cking.

I like this one on the Quantocks 🙂

Trespass is a tort, not a criminal offence, so ‘trespassers will be prosecuted’ is a nonsense. ‘Trespassers will be sued’ would work, though.

The confusing thing for me was that it was a council RoW Dept sign and I believe the land is council owned. Can the council be as picky as a private landlord or do they have to treat groups equally?

I would assume the council can act like any other land owner and pick and chose who to extend additional access rights to over and above rights of way. As a land owner they arent acting as a rights of way body, just a land owner.