Historic Rights of Way

Debate between Baroness Taylor of Bolton and Lord Greaves

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, this debate is about historic rights of way: those that have never been registered but existed before 1949. I want to talk about the procedural and technical problems involved in historic rights of way, so I will not talk about their value and so on. I assume for the purposes of this debate that that is a given and people do not need an explanation of why they are such a good thing. I thank in particular the British Horse Society, the Ramblers, the Open Spaces Society and the Trails Trust for the wonderful briefings they have sent. I declare an interest as vice-president of the Open Spaces Society. I also thank everybody who has put their name down to speak in this debate.

It all started with the CRoW Act in 2000, so I decided to look up what I said in the debate on the Bill as it went through the Lords. On 26 June 2000, which seems a remarkably long time ago, I was talking about resolving conflict over local rights of way et cetera. This, I said,

“must, essentially, take place at local level. As it stands, the Bill relies too much on national quangos sorting things out when what is really required is for local people on the ground to negotiate with each other in a sensible way”.—[Official Report, 26/6/00; col. 671.]

I do not believe we thought at the time that nearly 20 years later we would still be talking about the problems.

Sections 53 to 56 of the CRoW Act set out the process for claiming old, unclaimed historic rights of way—crucially, with a cut-off date of 1 January 2026. Any that have not been claimed by then will cease to exist for ever, although with the possibility under Section 56 of an extension by regulations to 2036.

The passage I have just quoted was, in retrospect, a bit naive. Things are not quite as simple as I thought at the time—but we have seen in the system for claiming historic rights of way the worst of all worlds: national inaction and delays, half-hearted efforts to get things going, followed by more inaction and delays. Local authorities have sometimes tried and sometimes been unwilling; they are increasingly unable to cope because of financial cuts. There is an increasing reliance on local groups, charities and volunteers to sort this out. They are wholly underresourced, frustrated and dismayed by the hopelessness of the task.

According to a freedom of information request from the Ramblers, 4,400 or more applications are stuck in the system. What happened? First, the Countryside Agency set up the Discovering Lost Ways project in 2004. That was closed down three years later, with four new rights of way registered. In 2008, Natural England set up the Stakeholder Working Group on Unrecorded Public Rights of Way, a body which consisted of local authorities, user groups, landowners and management interests, and really did get people together to thrash things out. It produced the Stepping Forward report in 2010 with 32 recommendations. Five more years went by before the Deregulation Act 2015 legislated for many of the recommendations in Stepping Forward. Another five years have now gone by and nothing has happened. We are still waiting for that part of the Deregulation Act to be brought into play through regulations.

I was going to quote what the Minister in the Commons said about the Act in 2000 but the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, is here and she can give evidence.

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

I shall intervene only briefly. I was Chief Whip in the Commons when the legislation went through, and I assure everyone here that it was not anticipated that there would be a difficulty within that timeframe. It is the problems that arose later, particularly the pressures on local government, that have got us into the position today where it is vital that we look at the timescale again.

[Lord Greaves]

I am very grateful for that intervention in person, as it were. In evidence that it has sent to us, the Trails Trust says that the Countryside Agency said in 2010 that there were 16,100 kilometres of unrecorded rights of way and that another 36,000 kilometres of historic route existed and needed investigating. That was just in England; there were more in Wales. So there is a huge problem.

There is a huge backlog involving competing local authorities with diversion and other public footpath orders, enforcements, disputes, commons claims and disputes and so on. In addition, the original definitive maps from 1949 vary hugely in quality and accuracy. Some are hopeless and some are good. Even when they record a route, as I know well from examples in my own area in the Pennines, a bridleway can simply stop at the parish boundary and turn suddenly into a footpath where bridleway rights are not allowed. Sometimes they simply stop where the person who was doing the surveying back in the early 1950s changed over to someone else.

The situation is hopeless. I am grateful for the large number of letters that I have had from people on the ground all over the country—from Yorkshire, Burnley, Rochdale, Northumberland, Bromley, Rossendale, Cambridgeshire and Wales—explaining how hopeless it is. I shall quote from one or two of them to show what the position is. Cosima Towneley, chairman of the Burnley Bridleways Association and chairman of the National Federation of the Bridleway Associations, says:

“The Government—of which ever hue—gallops towards the Cut Off but has failed to undertake a single action promised … Where is the 2015 report which should have given an indication as to the viability of projects such as Discovering Lost Ways … Where is the support at Local Authority level to carry the huge backlog of claims and the enquiries they generate through to implementation on the ground?”.


From Northumberland, Susan Rogers writes:

“Even when a decision has been made for an order to add or to upgrade a path, there can be a long delay before the legal department of the council makes the order … At the moment if there is an objection, even an irrelevant one, the order has to be sent to the Secretary of State for confirmation”.


And so on. There is a huge amount of frustration and dismay from people who are doing tremendous work at their own expense and in their own time.

At the request of the Minister, I sent her some questions that I would like the Government to answer. I shall finish by reading them out, if there is time. Do the Government stand by the commitment given in 2000 at the time of CRoW to make every effort to register all historic rights of way before the cut-off date? Do the Government agree that Discovering Lost Ways resulted in the loss of almost a decade in the registration of historic rights of way that has not been made up since? Do they agree that the stake- holder working group set up in 2008 saw a welcome coming together of different interests and that its Stepping Forward report in 2010 represented a practical means of achieving the intentions of CRoW, but the fact that the 32 recommendations have still not been enacted makes the 2026 target date impossible to achieve? When do the Government intend to bring into effect the 2015 Deregulation Act containing these recommendations?

In view of the evidence of the failure to achieve the intentions of CRoW and the provision in Section 56 to allow an extension to 2031, will the Government now make the necessary regulations for the extension? Do they understand that there are thousands of volunteers who are struggling thanks to the time and costs involved, the complexity of the system and the inadequate and seriously reducing resources of local highways authorities to cope? If so, what further assistance will they provide for that process?

I have an additional question: what resources do the Government think are needed to achieve the CRoW aims by 2036 or 2031, and how will they provide them? In view of everything that has happened and of their own failure, will the Government now stand by the historic position of “once a highway, always a highway”, and seek to repeal Section 53 and related sections of the CRoW Act?

I have reached my cut-off date. I look forward to the answers to my questions.

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Taylor of Bolton and Lord Greaves

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton]

I support my noble friend and have attached my name to Amendments 37 and 91. Over recent weeks, since we first tabled the amendments, there have been many opportunities for the Government to clarify the situation, but we are as confused as we were. The comments of my noble friend Lord Faulkner summarise very well the dilemma that we face in trying to understand the Government's intentions. My noble friend gave a brief but accurate history of the formation of the Football Licensing Authority. He mentioned in passing the Football Trust, of which he was not only a leading member but fundamental in its establishment. I pay tribute to the work that he did, which was very important.

My noble friend also mentioned the Hillsborough disaster. Many of us who have a serious and long-term interest in football will remember exactly where we were on that day. All of us who have been involved in considering safety issues remember many of the details—the work that went into the Taylor report and the public concern about other disasters as well as Hillsborough—and the great leap forward that everybody in football had to make to come to terms with the improvements necessary to provide spectators with the safety that they deserved. From those unfortunate beginnings, from those disasters, we have made significant progress in this country and, as my noble friend said, become world leaders in football stadium design and football safety generally.

The reputation of the FLA is without doubt—I have heard no one in another place or in general conversation criticise its work—but over the past few weeks we have seen incredible confusion, as my noble friend has pointed out. Originally, there was reassurance from the department to the FLA about its future. There has been the suggestion of extra responsibility through the Private Member’s Bill, which I think received more or less universal acclaim when it was introduced in another place. Nobody dissented to that Bill; indeed, the Government so supported the Bill that they introduced a money resolution to facilitate its passage, which is somewhat unusual. So far, so good for Football Licensing Authority, but then we got this Bill. No one has said that the FLA is not doing a good job—many say that it should have more responsibility—and there have even been plans to make it more efficient, but then we got suggestions of abolition or merger.

We all know how important football is in this country. I am one of those people—some would say, sad people—who spend most Saturdays on either a high or a low depending on the result of the Bolton Wanderers match. Hundreds of thousands of people, myself and many others in this House included, go regularly to football matches. We go today safe in the knowledge that the stadiums that we attend are up to scratch. I have taken my children since they were quite a young age. It is important to people such as me who believe that football is a family sport that we can take our children—and, for many people, grandchildren—to football matches in the knowledge that everything is done to provide the right safety standards.

As my noble friend said, the FLA has world respect. People come to the FLA for advice. Other countries would very much like to have the kind of authority that we have in this country. The Government’s confusion over the past few months has undermined, and is in danger of destabilising, the good work that has been done over many years. This provision in the Bill raises questions about the Government's commitment to football and to sport in general. We saw what happened with the school sports money. Although there was a partial U-turn on that, similar damage has been done.

The FLA is critical to the safety of spectators and participants in sport, exists on a very small budget and is very well thought of. Indeed, the FLA is rather strange in the lack of criticism that it attracts. The FLA has pushed out new grounds, has developed stewarding and has got the co-operation of clubs—even very senior clubs—which have listened to its advice and taken its encouragement. The FLA has not had to be heavy-handed because of the respect in which it is held by all in football.

I hope that the Government tonight will give some thought to clarifying just what is their commitment both to the FLA and to all of us who watch football matches live and who depend on the FLA to ensure the safety of ourselves, our families and those who watch football with us.

[Lord Greaves]

I should follow the noble Baroness by admitting that I, too, spend more of my time than is good for me watching football matches. In my case it is nowadays mainly non-league football in the north of England. It is a wonderful thing to do, but not to be discussed here today.

This proposal is one of the most mystifying of the proposals in the various schedules to the Bill. We have discussed a number of them so far and we have quite a few more to go. By and large, they fall into one of two categories. There are those which the Government want to abolish and simply close because they are no use any more or because the Government think their functions should no longer be carried out. That is not the case with this body. There are those where the functions are being transferred to the appropriate government department on the grounds that, in the Government’s view, that provides more democratic accountability for their functions than an arm’s-length body, a non-departmental public body or some other sort of arm’s-length body, as at present. That is not the case with this body because the information we are being given so far makes it absolutely clear that the functions will continue, that no staff will be made redundant and presumably, therefore, there will not be any significant savings.

Certainly, the Government have not provided any information about whether they think savings can be made. That is the second group of bodies—those which the Government want to reorganise because they believe that savings can be made. If sensible savings can be made by reorganising quangos, it is difficult to argue against that if the proposals are otherwise reasonable and sensible. However, that is not the case with this body. The functions are to remain, the staff are to remain and it does not appear that there will be any significant savings, although perhaps the Minister can tell us about that. What, therefore, is the purpose of the change?

Some suggestions have been made that it might be better for it to be part of a larger body with a wider remit, although the Private Member’s Bill being put forward would allow for that to happen anyway, as I understand it. So, why is it being done? That is the fundamental question that has to be asked and that the Ministerhas to answer. He has to provide some information about what new structure, what new system of transfer or merger of powers the Government want to bring about. If the powers are to be transferred to some other body, or merged with those of some other body, which other bodies are we talking about? Again, the information we have been provided with is incredibly vague. In fact, it is completely vague; it simply has not been stated.

It seems that this goes back, yet again, to the basic deficiency of the whole architecture of the Bill. Given the architecture of the Bill at the moment, and the way in which these bodies can be closed down, or merged, or have their powers transferred or whatever it is, simply by ministerial order, subject only to a relatively brief take-it-or-leave-it debate in this House and the procedures in the House of Commons, we have no alternative but to try to probe, in Committee, what is going to happen with each and every one of these bodies. That is why it is taking so much time.

As for this body, the information we have been provided which so far is absolutely and utterly inadequate and, unless proper information is provided by Report, the House would be entirely justified in taking this body out of the Bill.