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Richard Cuthbert appointed
(1 11 2001)
Richard Cuthbert has been appointed to the rights of way
manager post at County Hall, a promotion from his previous job of
Countryside Access Team Leader. BADFA congratulates him and looks forward
to continuing and expanding our work with him. He replaces Garry Preston,
who left in late 2000.
BADFA said at the time that Garry left "We hope
the successor is able and willing to tackle some of the fundamental issues
underlying rights of way policy at County Hall as well as to work with the
customer representatives like us to achieve best value." Dare we
say we should now replace the word 'hope' with 'believe'?
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Friends
of Bushey Museum
garden party 18th August 2001
Norman and Hazel, as well as Ann and Ivy (shown here)
ran the stall, aided by other BADFA people. We showed our path
surfacing work, a bench, work with the rail cable people as well as our
walks and the John Sears Day 2001 in St James' churchyard.
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National
Grid meet BADFA's request
Updated Aug 9th 2001
The new railway power cable which is being currently
being laid across Bushey crosses two paths. One is the Finch Lane to
Little Bushey Lane path, Bushey 12, the other the Harvest Close to Little
Bushey Lane path, Bushey 21. The rail people thought they had been helpful
to us and appeared hurt at our criticism of the (illegal?) structures that
they had put up across these paths. They were temporary structures but may
well be up for four months or more, the whole of the rest of the
summer/autumn.
Eventually they agreed to replace the stile with a square-type kissing
gate and to remove the two kissing gates or at least the swinging gates
themselves.
We are pleased to report that they met their agreed time
scale of "a week to ten days" and we thank them for that.
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Despite the rail people
being fully aware of BADFA's very negative attitude to stiles, they
put up this travesty of a stile. Not even to the previous British
Standard, let alone to the recent version. Their man said he had no
problem crossing, he is a fit, youngish man so he would say that
wouldn't he. Chris Beney, our chairman, who was convalescing from a
leg infection, crossed it fairly easily one way but had great
difficulty the other way.
There is now a latched swing-gate. BADFA has
approval to improve it further and will do so soon.
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The two gates, one each side of the
cable route, were totally unnecessary since the cable route itself
is securely fenced from cattle. It was a case of belt and braces
against claims from the farmer, all at the expense of path users of
course. (perhaps it should be called the foot and mouth syndrome).
Railtrack agreed to remove the swing-gates, but were forestalled by
a thief who pinched them both.
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| The gate that replaced the
stile was ALSO stolen. BADFA replaced it as a goodwill gesture but
of course with one carved with "Public Footpath". For the
record BADFA has never had a gate stolen when we have carved
"Public Footpath" on it. Besides the three Railtrack ones
one was stolen at Carpenders Park that was put up by HCC and was
uncarved. Railtrack has noted this now. |
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New Greenway at Allum Lane 7th July 2001
The Mayor of Hertsmere and the
Deputy Sheriff of Hertfordshire opened a new Greenway from Elstree up to
the open country to the north. BADFA is on the steering group for Greenway
activity in Hertsmere.
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BADFA
Chairman's leg problem recurs
BADFA chairman Chris Beney was whisked into hospital at
the end of June with another bout of leg infection. He is back home now
but will not be able to do the whole Festival Walk. Some people will do
anything to avoid exercise! For the non-squeamish click here for gory details.
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AGM
Tuesday 24th April 2001
It is BADFA’s 10th year and Watford Fieldpath
Association’s 102nd year and we celebrated both of these by reviewing
where we have been and where we are going. We marked the occasion with
Champagne in the interval.
The ‘CROW’ Act, passed by Parliament at the end of last year will have
some significant impact on us for the coming years. Phil Wadey talked
about the serious problem but exciting possibility arising from the CROW
Act deadline for getting public paths on the formal map. In the interval
committee members stood by various maps with unrecorded paths marked and
for some we asked people to say if they would fill in a claim form later,
for others, we got forms filled in on the spot. After the break Chris
Beney reviewed our Walks and Works of the past year with the aid of
slides.
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John Sears’
Study Day 2001
Sunday 29th April
The Natural History of the Churchyard
John
pointing out plants near Path 19
John Sears MSc. ran another day school, this year
on the subject of the natural history of the Churchyard on Sunday 29th
April.
In many parishes, the village churchyard is the only surviving relic of
ancient grassland providing a refuge for flowers, birds, butterflies,
small mammals and in some cases amphibians and slow worms. There is
possibly 20,000 acres of ancient grasslands in English churchyards
combining with hedge borders, walls, tombstones, trees, ditches and pools
to provide a valuable oasis for flowers and wildlife - and the area is
preserved for posterity.
Sally Banks has kindly written about this year's study day. See Sally Banks' report.
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Magistrates
order van Hoogstraten path to be cleared
[Most of this text is from the Ramblers' Association report http://www.ramblers.org.uk/newsandmagazine/vanhoogcase.htm
dated 20 March 2001]
The success of this case may well assist BADFA on some of our more
intractable cases.
LEWES MAGISTRATES have used brand-new
powers to order illegal obstructions on a path across the estate of
millionaire Nicholas van Hoogstraten to be cleared.
Rarebargain Ltd - the company registered
as owning the land over which the 140-year-old path runs - has been fined
a total of £4,000 for the obstructions and must remove the barbed wire,
locked gates and refrigeration units blocking the route by 17 April. A
barn is also to be removed within six months.It is the first case where
magistrates have been able to demand a footpath be cleared following the
introduction of new powers in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.
Previously, a magistrate could find a path illegally blocked but it was up
to the local council to arrange for the route to be reopened.
Ramblers' Association Executive Committee
member Kate Ashbrook had taken the case to court in January last year but
despite the magistrate declaring Framfield footpath 9 to be illegally
blocked, East Sussex council failed to reinstate the route. When the
council last summer announced plans to divert the route rather than clear
the blockages it received an unprecedented 4,000 letters of objection.
The barn blocking the
path
photo Chris Beney
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Work at Munden Drive
Colin Knight (RA),
in photo, and Chris Beney (BADFA) on 9 Feb 2001 put up a sign at the
start of the drive to Munden by the A41.
The landholder has put some user unfriendly gates here which we plan to
sort out.
POSTSCRIPT: The sign and post was stolen within a short time of
installation.
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Paths at The Grove, Watford
 click picture
for closer view
The Grove, Watford, where a proposal to divert paths because of a golf
course has been abandoned. The present proposal is to leave the paths (one
crosses a fairway) but dedicate some extra alternative, and less
dangerous, ones.
 We need to make sure
these alternatives are really first class, this temporary public path on
The Grove site demonstrates the need to ensure quality.
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Bushey 35. Little Bushey Lane to the
Bypass.
At Watford Magistrates Court on 26th January a deal was done on Bushey
35.
There had been problems on this path for years. The path, mostly RUPP
status, had had a downgrading request from the landowner to footpath. This
request (wrongly) stopped County from acting to clear the structures which
made it impassable to horses, very difficult for bicycles and push-chairs,
and inconvenient for walkers. County then considered if there was a
possible case for downgrading and decided to make an order to test the
case and we all faced a stressful inquiry which could have gone either
way. A deal was suggested; probably by Phil Wadey (with his BHS hat) and
Chris Beney. BADFA committee endorsed this approach.
This proposal and endorsement was taken up by County and by the landowner
and resulted in the 26th January Court Order making this disputed RUPP a
footpath on a slightly different line, thus benefiting the landowner. But
at the same time a brand new five metre wide bridleway was created some
200 metres away, thus benefiting everyone else. Chris Beney spoke in
favour of the deal at the court, wearing both his BADFA and his Open
Spaces Society hats.
So now instead of having just one RUPP (or at worst just one footpath) we
have both a footpath and a bridleway, and thus a good circular walk. BADFA
plans to put kissing gates on the footpath section to replace the stiles
and there is some other work to do. We are liaising with County and
Hertsmere on this.
The old RUPP, now footpath
 The new bridleway
Very importantly this route forms part of the H25, the BHS's London
Orbital Bridleway, as well as a vital link in the planned Hertsmere
Borough greenway from Bushey to Aldenham Country Park. Also County has
saved the cost of a public inquiry. This is an example of BEST VALUE in
action.
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