Action Briefing Oct 2003 - Nov 2003
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

The Lost Paths of Birmingham

Of course it shouldn't happen, but owing to inadequate resources, Birmingham City Council has spent the past twenty years not producing the required definitive map and statement for public rights of way.

This means in practice that the path that you use to reach the shops, the routes that may also be access to back gardens and garages, and even the path through the park, may miss the deadline for registration.

The facts came out amongst the papers introducing the proposed Local Access Forum (LAF) for Birmingham that was discussed at a meeting on 25th September. The LAF will represent a range of bodies interested in rights of way, including some that would wish to see more closed. Birmingham City Council is seeking members for the Forum and, commendably, Bob Hunt, chair of the Ramblers Association (Birmingham Branch), may apply. Mr. Hunt has striven over the last few years, to take up the cause of the lost paths, or, as he says wryly, ‘the lost cause of the paths’.

The statutory duty to prepare a definitive map statement dates from the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. In Birmingham, there is a register of more than 2,500 known rights of way on the ‘Register of Streets’. Birmingham City Council have estimated that one third of these rights of way will need to have a statutory order prepared. Objections to the statutory order can often require the test of a Public Inquiry.

Very recently, perhaps shaken from its lethargy by the Ramblers Association, the City Council has claimed that it is recruiting staff to meet the challenge. Our own Planning Campaigner has his doubts and put forward the following question: “Assuming that 800 path registrations are contested and that optimistically a Public Inquiry needs one week and that there are 40 available weeks in the year, 800 public inquiries could take twenty years to sort out.”

Birmingham Friends of the Earth’s concern is that through a lack of effort we risk the loss of important community resources. It is for this reason we ask concerned members to write to their councillor or to Councillor Albert Bore at Council House, Victoria Square, B1 1BB, for the answers.

Alex Watt