Dear Guy - and copied to other interested parties for their thoughts, PLEASE!
IMPROVING ACCESS
It was brilliant to hear you on 'BH' with Paddy O'Connell on Radio 4, earlier this year. Well done!
Where do you stand, Guy over OS maps giving greater prominence to accurate mapping, rather than publishing public rights of way that, sometimes bear no reality to what you find on the ground? And, showing accurate crossings of walls, hedges, fences in open access land, instead of relying on Definitive Maps (DM) that are, sometimes, misleading? Too often, I find straight lines and gentle curves marking PROWs in open access land on the OS Explorer map. Would they be better left off, perhaps?
For example, on the Worcs/Salop border, in a one-kilometre square, I have found five rights of way on the definitive map, copied onto the Landranger and Explorer maps, that go through a home, private gardens, rivers/streams without bridges and totally unnecessary duplication of two invisible paths (Worcs 502 and 660) a few metres to the west of one that walkers do use (Worcs 661) at Lower Doddenhill Farm. In fact, the OS cartographers diverted the one round the home, deciding on this occasion not to rely on the legal document (the DM) - Worcs 507 path - straight through New Brick Barns bungalow!
I would like our top priority, to encourage walking, to be this: to have welcoming signs and gates or safe stiles where rights of way meet roads. Then, easy to follow paths that encourage more to return without having to use maps. Gates, rather than stiles and excellent waymarking would also help to encourage use.
Right to roam is lessening on public rights of way as footbridges never get maintained. When dangerous to use they are closed & rarely get replaced (Worcs seem to be better than Salop re wooden footbridges), especially the longer ones over major rivers because they come under Countryside Services that are starved of funds. Should those longer footbridges become the responsibility of Highway Departments, in the hope that they would then get maintained/replaced? Even, Grade 2 listed public footbridges are allowed to collapse (R Rea)!
As vital, natural resources become in shorter supply during this century, should we not be returning to the walking and horseback that were so popular for millennia - until the discovery of the rather mixed blessing of fossil fuels?!
It would be great to hear from you, please Guy - and others for their thoughts.
Best wishes
Tim Weller
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