https://amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/nov/02/more-than-49000-miles-paths-lost-maps-england-wales

The ramblers are busy recording lost PROWS for potential recording on the definitive map.  Are any cycling bodies (CUK, BC) doing similar?  Also, what constitutes evidence of prow and status?

Not as far as I’m aware. The Ramblers set up a great crowdsourced search to do an initial sweep, and at least where I am (Cornwall) the local horse riding society has done an *amazing* effort at marking paths that they’ve been riding on for decades. I’m very happy the horse people are involved: they can attest to lanes that relations were riding a long time ago, and will be pushing for bridleways not footpaths.

I hope that when the Ramblers go to stage two of their plan (as stage 1 was just ‘how screwed are we’) they engage with the horse and cycling communities.

Cycling UK and the horsey lot have been banging on about protecting and recording rights of way for years, but it’s got overshadowed by the focus on urban cycling infrastructure.

As far as I’m aware, British Cycling aren’t aware that riding away from tarmac exists beyond cyclo-cross.

BC aren’t doing anything

The horse people are doing lots together with the ramblers, cycling UK are more advocate than actual effort

Cycling UK are on to this I believe. They’ve registered some claims with the county council where I am.

As a member of Surrey Countryside Access forum we have just sent a letter to Lord Gardiner, Sec of state requesting a delay of 2026 cut off date as Covid has effectively closed Rights of way offices to the public to be able to research lost ROW evidence. Also the government has failed to provide extra funding to cover this work which was originally promised to councils to enable this work to take place. Cycling UK, Ramblers, BHS, and all wheeled drive clubs are all working together to try and help get this delay.

How does one access the old maps referred to? Put in my postcode and up came a map for the county which was meaningless and couldn’t enlarge either. Went on the Ramblers website and really am none the wiser.

British Library have digitised a lot

National library of Scotland has an excellent website

Cycling Uk with very few exceptions will be all gass and gaiters. They’ve had 18 years to do something. You need to get in touch with your County Council’s PROW officer and ask for a guidance as to what constitutes evidence. Ask for their guidance pack on the subject, that will put them on the spot.
User evidence is weak on it’s own and only valid if the landowner has not given permission. If they have then the path is already permissive and thus fails the test. Loads are going to fail on this.
The strongest evidence is if the route is an Inclosure Award route that was enacted. These were graded as public highways bridleways and footpaths. I have 6 bridleways in Radnorshire I’m about to claim this winter, just on that evidence. I don’t need anything else, as they were passed by Acts of Parliament and then had enabling legislation to enact the Act. Class One Tithe maps are strong evidence. If the route is shown to have no markings on it then tithe wasn’t collected from the landowner, it was considered public. Class Two used existing mapping and is far less strong. Next you have old pre OS mapping. If a route is shown on several of these that’s really strong under the ‘Once a highway always a highway’ rule. Undiscovered ones are few and far between. Early 6″ OS mapping is no evidence apart from showing exactly where a route shown on previous mapping is as OS mapping was drawn up to help the Army move around and made no distinction between public and private roads. BTW “private” meant for the denizens of the Parish not the general population. It’s changed meaning since then…
All this stuff is sitting in Kew National Archives and Council’s Archives and Modern Records depts along with the council “List Of Streets” which is rarely accurate and all encompassing. I had a job for four years helping sort out Powys Highways records. They were in a complete mess. We forwarded 100 kilometres of missing routes to the OS.
Dispirited and confused? I’ve only scratched the surface….

Hi keithb, I work on off-road campaigning for Cycling UK.

We have been doing some research behind the scenes on historic RoW – most recently involving an application for around 60 miles of routes in the New Forest.

We have always found it difficult to engage people in volunteering to research lost ways, because as cloggy described, it’s really complicated and time-consuming, and finding the evidence for higher rights (bridleway or byway status) can make it even more complicated. Plus only a small proportion of Cycling UK members are off-road riders, so for the majority it doesn’t feel very relevant – it’s a bit of a different situation for Ramblers or BHS, where their members can see why it’s essential.

So saying that, it’s always great to find people like all of you who are interested in delving into this process. We’ve collected together some guidance and resources from various organisations at https://www.cyclinguk.org/2026 which should hopefully explain how to get started.

Some areas have bridleway and byway groups where you can find other people who are more experienced at doing the research and can provide some help and advice.

Sophie

One really helpful thing that Cycling UK should do is have a downloadable info pack on how to present a route to the council for a DMMO, as some councils make it look very difficult.

To be honest the 2026 date needs to change. The council’s can’t process the few applications they have, the requirements for a public inquiry in some cases is onerous. When the funding got pulled the date should have gone

It’s sad that all this worthy work has to be done to get something that should be as of right.

Is there a campaign to get right to roam like we have in Scotland and the Scandinavian countries?

Um this a result of Right to Roam. The CLA and Farmers were so hacked off that Blair asked them what they wanted in return. They asked for a cessation of applications for routes. The CLA told me they expected a window of one or two years for applications but that would have failed at the European Court of Human Rights so we got 25 years to sit on our hands and do nothing.
Sophie’s welcome honesty shows that we need a representative body for offroad cyclists to match the Ramblers but mountainbiking having gone towards built trails makes that almost impossible. The BMBF [British MountainBike Federation] were pressured to pack in the interests of getting mountainbiking into the Olympics. With hindsight a bad tactical error as for the reasons Sophie gives we are tucked in a corner cupboard first by British Cycling and then by as was CTC [Cycling UK]. This is not CTC’s fault, though they have been anything but honest about the true position in the past. That’s why Colin Palmer and I left. We and the horse riders got nothing out of Right to Roam, it just allowed unfettered walking on Commons and unimproved farm land in England and Wales, as shown on OS Explorer mapping. Probably the best thing for any volunteer to do is to join a local horse group that are putting in applications. Not many will be though.

@orienteeringgirl
Thanks Sophie, I used be a CTC member, but left when the charity transition happened (following a misleading consultation with members) and CTC got rid of their Technical Officer and Off-Road Officer as part of a restructure.

So from that link, CTC’s contribution is to signpost other peoples efforts, with limited attempts to engage the cycling community to participate.  Peak District MTB and Singletrack have done more to push the profile of this than the “national cycling charity”.

The suggestion by cloggy to provide an information pack on how to present them to councils is a great one, and would mean that it is easily accessible to all.

The CTC did seem to be building itself to be the off-road riders representative body, but through the restructure etc a while back, lost its way, stopped supporting Aston Hill Bike Park and just disappeared from the Off Road scene. I think the CTC/MTB fit is quite a good one as both disciplines are generally non-competitive, formed of groups out to have fun on bikes, be that circumnavigating the globe or riding round your local woods.    They lost their way and missed a massive opportunity to engage a large section of otherwise disengaged cyclists.

I have a route I believe to be misclassified, as it changes from Bridleway to Footpath as it crosses a parish boundary, and provides a link between otherwise disconnected bridleways.  The overall route then goes on to cross a county boundary and disappears again, though the county has installed a horse pelican crossing on the route, as it joins directly to a large commercial Stables/riding school!  Simple logic would suggest this would be a single bridleway, but presenting it to authorities “with supporting evidence” when no-one has ever been able to clarify what constitutes evidence is a hurdle too far for most people to bother getting involved.

Sometimes in the above situation the footpath turns out to already have legal higher rights, most often as a dual status route ie is both on the PROW list and the Council road list. If just an unsealed Council road and known to OS it will be an ORPA. Although unsealed dual status routes appear on OS mapping under their PROW status, for instance as [but not always] a footpath, they actually have rights up to Horse Drawn Vehicle for amenity users, ie the same as a Restricted Byway, so it’s worth checking in the Highways dept. It’s a shame that these routes are only shown at their lower status, but that’s another story….. In these times it may be advisable to contact the highways dept to find the correct individual and then send an OS map copy of the route to them.