Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville
Main Page: Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Greaves for securing this important debate and for setting out the case so well. Rights of way are very dear to the public’s heart, if not necessarily to the landowners. I declare an interest in that there is a footpath running along the edge of our garden and within our boundary. Currently, it is used by children playing hide-and-seek, and by ramblers once a year.
Towards the end of my time on Somerset County Council, I was a member of the environment committee, which met once a month. Not every meeting contained an application to put a right of way on the definitive map. If there was one, often a site visit would have taken place earlier in the month. We also had written evidence, in addition to the views we may have gleaned when we were out on site. All of this was six to 12 years ago, when the rights-of-way department was small and the offices were overworked. At that time, there was a five-year backlog on rights-of-way applications. As one of those contacting me eloquently said: “By the time the application comes forward, many of those who would have given evidence will have died”.
Given the Government’s drive to make us all healthier and most of the public’s wish to embrace this ethos, it would seem extremely short-sighted not to put some investment into ensuring that rights of way are fully investigated and not lost forever. Relying on volunteers is unsustainable, as the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, and my noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market have indicated. I have received interesting briefs from a range of organisations, all saying that the deadline of 2026 will cause a huge loss of potential access for the public to the countryside. Many give examples of how difficult it is to provide the necessary proof that a bridleway or footpath ever existed over a disputed route, as has been demonstrated by the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow.
If the 2026 deadline is adhered to, I cannot see how the promises in the Government’s 25-year environment plan to create new green infrastructure will be delivered. Would the Minister care to comment on this? As my noble friend Lord Greaves said, in 2010, the Countryside Agency estimated that there were 16,000 kilometres of unrecorded rights of way in England, with 1,500 in Wales, and a potential 36,000 kilometres of historic routes that existed and needed investigating. The lack of local authority funding impacts on route maintenance and definitive map work. This means that the grass routes which the horse industry uses is severely threatened. This is an activity which attracts a high proportion of women, girls, children, disabled people and older people, and because of its rural nature, it is a big contributor to the rural economy.
If the cut-off date of 2026 remains, it should be only with the agreement that all existing recorded rural footpaths be made equally accessible to the non-motorised user groups—equestrians, cyclists and walkers—and I cannot agree with the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, on this. Many children wish to ride their bicycles to school, but the roads are not safe to do so. If byways and bridleways could be made available over green lanes, they could enjoy exercise safely. It is not necessary to design rights of way as though they were super-highways costing thousands of pounds.
This has been a fascinating debate. It is obvious from everything that has been said that there are differing opinions about whether there should be a cut-off date or not. As my noble friend Lord Greaves said, in 2007, the Discovering Lost Ways project recorded only four lost ways in one county and had to be abandoned at a cost of £8 million; what a chronic waste of money.
There are areas of the country such as Cornwall with a vast number of paths to investigate. Walkers spend more than £6 billion a year supporting 24,000 full-time jobs, while the economic value of the equestrian sector stands at £4.3 billion. The Government would be unwise to ignore this economic impact. Surely the Minister will accept that it would be better to abandon the 2026 deadline and think again.