Government U-turn calms landowners in coastal path row

10 June 2009

The Government has agreed to allow landowners to object to an access corridor around England’s coast. It follows criticism that there was ‘a significant human rights issue’ over its procedure for creating the path.

However, while ministers were congratulated by landowners, they came under fire from senior county officials for continuing to press ahead with the coastal path plan without talking to the people that deliver things on the ground.

In a policy U-turn, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath amended the Marine and Coastal Access Bill last week to ensure that landowners’ interests were taken into account with an objections procedure. The Planning Inspectorate would consider objections to the path’s alignment proposed by Natural England.

Previously, the Government had maintained the cost of appeals against the right to roam would be disproportionate.

The Country Land and Business Association welcomed the Government’s ‘substantial change of heart’ that would give farmers ‘the right to object to any adverse changes to their business brought about by proposals for the coastal path’.

But the Institute of Public Rights of Way’s executive officer, Geri Coop, said the change meant there was ‘potential for another drawn-out procedure, as was the case with the mapping of open access,’ instead of the ‘effective arbitration’ IPROW members can provide.

The secretary of state would, Lord Hunt said, have to balance landowners’ interests with other considerations, including the safety and convenience of the route, the desirability of the route adhering to the coastal periphery and the need to keep interruptions to a minimum.

Natural England has announced an implementation advisory group to engage with local authorities on the coastal path plans, but both IPROW and the County Surveyors’ Society (CSS) were not represented, something they want rectified.

Alan Feist, the chair of the CSS countryside working group, said: ‘It appears that proposals are coming forward without talking to the people who deliver these things, the people who know what they are doing and can make these aspirations work.’

A question mark also remains over what funding will be available for local highway authorities to maintain the coastal path.
The Government stated that future funding would be decided by a Natural England funding review (Surveyor, 11 December 2008). A spokeswoman told Surveyor that the findings of the national trails review have yet to be considered by Natural England’s executive board.

Coop said that long-term resources for the whole public rights of way network needed to be identified and then channelled into those routes where there is demand, as proven in rights of way improvement plans – usually long circular routes.

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