The Government’s plan to designate a statutory access path around the whole of England’s coast with an Act of Parliament, rather than through local negotiation, has come under fire.
The Institute of Public Rights of Way predicted that pressing ahead with plans for the secretary of state to establish the path nationally, on the basis of recommendations from Natural England, would lead ‘to legal disputes costing thousands of pounds and dragging on for years’.
The Countryside Council for Wales said the method in Wales of local authorities designating the sections of the all-Wales coastal path using the Highways Act 1980 ‘allows the path to be established through agreement with landowners’. IPROW president Nick Elliott urged ‘consultation and negotiation based on existing legal provision to minimise the risk of bitter disputes in the future’.
Rights of way officers ‘are experienced in using arbitration to reach agreement, balancing opening up access with protecting landowners’ interests’, he said. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs accepted Natural England’s recommendation that using the Highways Act ‘would lack national momentum, depending on local authorities’ willingness to act’.
However, Quentin Grimley, coastal access projects officer for the Countryside Council for Wales, overseeing delivery of the all-Wales coastal path, said this method was proving effective, following the awarding of £1.5M of grants in summer 2007 (Surveyor, 5 July 2007).
He told Surveyor: ‘The path is being delivered by local authorities, and we’re on track to have a grand launch in the summer of 2012.’ Schemes delivered this year included a Ceredigion coastal path and a footbridge over the mouth of the Cardiff Barrage.
In England, Natural England would hold local consultations locally, and appoint staff within local highway authorities to implement the route – once the alignment had been decided.
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