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Example of Crop Obstruction

The rules about ploughing and crops had been agreed in 1990 as a compromise by the National Farmers Union and many other organisations and these rules were then made law.

Aldenham 12 is part of the Hertfordshire Way. It is owned by County Hall who is also our Highway Authority with a duty to keep paths clear. County Hall owns both the path itself and the underlying land. It is farmed by a tenant farmer.

Many years ago we started to draw our Highway Authority's attention to the parlous and unlawful annual state of this public path.

We expected them to sort it out and they let us down. Their officer Ian Still despite being an ex police inspector failed first. Then Doug Fisher one year wrote proudly to us that the path was now clear. Of course it was, it had been harvested. We were told that the farmer had some new equipment that allowed the path not to be seeded and that our troubles were over. Ha Ha.

Broadly speaking a string of access officers since Doug Fisher have done nothing effective or it may even be nothing at all. We don't know, feedback on path issue reports is almost zero. Currently the path is once again in complete violation of the rules agreed by the Farmers' Union and yet another officer takes over next month (August 2004).

BADFA doesn't believe that County Hall is nearly proactive enough in following their own good practice guide as it currently stands, let alone as we believe it ought to stand, see 'Current Position on Crop obstruction'

2nd July 2004

2 July 2004

14 March 2004

24 June 2003

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