News items in year 2005:

# Death of Nancy Robinson
# Museum garden party 2005
# Update to traffic free crossing
# BADFA helps Woodland Trust at Merryhill
# BADFA EGM & AGM 2005
# Friends of the Hertfordshire Way website relaunch
# New agency named
# Hayfield Close BADFA converts stile to kissing gate.
# BADFA objects to Welwyn Garden City order
# Gaps Gates Stiles Standard may be revised
# Traffic-free Crossing started
# Some data released by County Hall
# Hilfield Lane path reopened January 2005
# Hartspring Meadow public path blocked

Nancy was a founder member of BADFA and staunch supporter of our work. She had campaigned for paths for many years, especially for the ones local to her home in Finch Lane. She used them a lot as a dog walker. Aged 97 and in sheltered accommodation, she had obviously not walked the paths for some time. But she wrote some letters with evidence of two local paths that are not yet on the official map, and if and when we get more evidence of these her written material will be of great value. She was, as you may know, the sister of the late Betty Goodison MBE. Nancy helped found Pendle, a school for small children in Coldharbour Lane.
 

Considered by all a success, we had made a large number of A3 sized prints of the last twelve month's walks and works. A lot of interest was shown and lots of membership leaflets given out.

We are now told that the legal process to get it opened will take until 2006.
We are continuing to lobby for steps to be included.

The new A41/M1 crossing at May 2005 viewed from the west side of the M1. The new Greenway can be seen coming from under the (white) A41 bridge on the left and curving up to the A41 itself.
The photo was taken from around where the word 'present' is in the plan below.

Current position is that opening is delayed because the legal process to allow People, horses and cycles on this Motorway land had not been started in time.

On May 1st BADFA supplied material for steps to help people cross a ditch near Merryhill allotments on the Woodland Trust land. Friends of Attenborough's Fields volunteers did the work. A bridge had been considered, but steps do perhaps look more natural.

 Click on these thumbnails for larger images    
    
The Stepbuilders

  The first users
 

EGM & Constitution
29th April at Church House saw both EGM and AGM. The EGM was about changing the constitution, triggered off by our insurer's demands. We took the opportunity to make some other changes that the committee felt to be necessary or appropriate. Because of the time constraints we don't think we yet have it 100% right, but it is much better. We have a very hard hurdle in the need for two thirds of all our members to approve. Despite a good response to the postal ballot we were still just short of that two thirds at the meeting, but about six votes for and none against at the meeting tipped the balance. The result is subject to a scrutiny of the votes at the next committee meeting, and to Charity Commission approval of the Objects Clause changes.

AGM
We had lots of apologies, many people had sent them with their vote.
Our treasurer, Richard DeBoise presented the accounts and answered a question from the floor about the quality of typists we had used for the WFA archive work. These typists had to be very painstaking and work in a special way, for instance they had to retain any spelling mistakes that existed in the original material.
Our Chairman, Chris Beney, then ran over events for the year under the three heads of Recording of Paths, Works on Paths and  Walks on Paths. Getting the Homefield Road path on the definitive map after ten years struggle was the recording highlight. Works included a stile to kissing gate conversion at Hayfield Close, walks were a selection from the year. When he spoke of works, Chris included some of the County Officer's activities, and he pulled no punches, and named names and showed at least three paths when a stitch was not in time and the public still suffers.. He suggested that officer training still leaves a great deal to be desired. The respectable sized audience (about forty, but the attendance list never got right round) seemed happy with the rather simpler AGM arrangements planned and executed for this year.
After the usual wine and chat we settled down to watch a video all about the history of The Grove at Stanmore, kindly loaned by the Bushey Museum. Many people locally had worked there or had known people who had. And the move of GEC/Marconi/BAC or whoever they are now called this year from Stanmore to Luton made this year an appropriate time to show it. At least two members of our committee had worked at The Grove.
 

The Friends of The Hertfordshire Way have been without a web site for some time. They are now on the air at www.fhw.org.uk. They have a signposted route round Hertfordshire and a book describing a series of walks which you can walk on your own using the guidebook or you can join their organised group walks.
 

Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, recently announced the name of the new organisation which will aim to conserve and enhance England's landscape and wildlife and encourage people to enjoy and gain benefit from it.

The new agency will be called Natural England, with the slogan "For People, Places and Nature".

The agency will bring together English Nature, parts of the Countryside Agency and most of the Rural Development Service. It will be formally established by January 2007, subject to Parliamentary agreement, through the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill. This was published in draft on 10 February for pre-legislative scrutiny and will be introduced to Parliament as soon as Parliamentary time allows.

Until the legislation is passed, the existing bodies will form a confederation of partners, working together.

BADFA aims to convert all stiles to kissing gates or preferably gaps. Bushey 21 from Hayfield Close to Little Bushey Lane had two stiles, one put in by BADFA as a British Standard stile demonstration. Paul Lory the tenant farmer, when asked by County access officer Dawn Grocock to allow us to upgrade these stiles to gates, kindly agreed.

We have now converted the stile near Hayfield Close. Colin Knight and Chris Beney did the work.
Here are the first users of the new gate:

A note on Path surface, a try-out
Normally BADFA has used crushed limestone or granite for hardening the heavily used area in and around gates. Locally we seem to have the choice, for granite at least. of "10 mm" or "3 mm to dust". 10 mm has proved a bit coarse and a bit rough under foot. Recently (March 2005) we tried 3 mm to dust on this Hayfield Close gate area. We would have preferred half and half: coarse and fine, but for 600Kg loads, the supplier won't do it. So we tried plain 3mm to dust. We also did something we have done successfully with gravel in the past, added some 'peat' (actually fine bark) into the top layer. This helps:
# to prevent the fine material from sticking to shoes and getting carried away.
# to enable and encourage grass to spread across the route and
# to give a more natural and pleasing colour than the sand-like look of 3 mm to fine.

We also, as we usually do, put a water permeable membrane under the added material. It will be interesting to see how this new surface performs.

Click picture for view showing the surface and also showing the use of the RADAR lock bypass

Welwyn Garden City sounds a bit beyond our patch, and so it is. But the Council Members there are trying to stop up a public path using a 'cunning plan' worthy of Baldrick. They have given approval to build a six foot high wall. So? Well the wall would be built across the whole width of a public path. And, Baldrick like, they make no secret of it "...brick wall...to act as a physical barrier preventing use of the [public] footpath by the public..."
This planning permission doesn't allow the wall to be built but it does allow them to use a further legal process stopping up the path "to enable the development to take place". If the stopping up is approved then they can build the wall and the path is gone for ever.

BADFA thinks it is a misuse of the planning laws and if allowed to go through could set a very bad precedent for paths that we are more closely involved with. So we have objected.

We are very pleased to report that County Hall on 8th February decided to object to the order too. As we read the law that means that there has to be a public inquiry if the District Council don't do the right thing and withdraw the order.

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Revision. The British Standards Institute is looking at the business case for revision of a number of standards which come under the excitingly named committee "B/201". These are mostly fencing standards but they include three of great interest to BADFA: Farm Gates, Cattle Grids, and Gaps Gates and Stiles. A working party, called Panel 13, has been set up to look at these three. Their remit is to consider merging them.

It seems likely that the Farm Gates one (BS 3470) will be recommended for deletion as it is little used, is prescriptive rather than functional, and would not warrant a complete rewrite. Just a little of it would be incorporated into Gaps Gates Stiles, which doesn't at present address farm gates on paths. The Cattle Grids one (BS 4008) appears to serve a useful purpose and may just have some fairly minor updates.

The one that concerns BADFA most: Gaps Gates & Stiles (BS 5709) had a major update amounting to a rewrite in 2001. Inevitably the current review is throwing up suggestions for improvements which are being looked at by 'Panel 13'. 

Public help sought. A questionnaire has been circulated seeking views on the the kind of specification needed for Gaps Gates & Stiles. Already a good number of replies have been circulated to Panel 13. But they would welcome more comment and a form, suggesting some questions to be answered is provided for your input. Or just e-mail to the panel direct.

Finally any views on electric fencing or barbed wire alongside paths and in public areas would be welcome as the BS committee B/201 will be deciding soon whether to launch a Standard for them. There is even talk of including hedges like Blackthorn. E-mail your views please.
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The work on the A41 underpass has started. This is a project that goes back a very long time, perhaps 15 years. The problem was that when they built the M1 and trunk roads they didn't pay enough attention to non-vehicular routes crossing them. Walking, cycling or horse riding from Bushey over to the aerodrome and the Country Park was difficult enough without having to cross the very busy A41, but that is what you have to do. The first we heard of the new scheme was from Phil Wadey, some 15 years ago. It was then taken up actively by Hertsmere. Both Phil and Hertsmere got the run-around for many years, no one accepting responsibility for the land involved or for actually taking any decision. But now it looks set to happen.

What is it? Well it involves starting where the A41 crosses the M1 with a massive bridge (near the Kennels and Tyler's Farm). Then instead of risking life or limb across the A41, you will nip down and under a spare arch of the A41/M1 bridge and up the other side of the A41.

The government promised many (?250) millions for road crossings and did a major consultation to which we contributed. This scheme emerged with most of the right justifications and was placed in the top priority category. Thank goodness it was, because the total funding was draconically cut. Liz Drake, Hertsmere's Greenways Officer, was liaising furiously late last year and now works actually seem to be happening on the ground.

Money restraints and technical issues mean that the steps for walkers on the western side are not planned, at least not yet. But there should be a good firm wide surface provided in a few months time. We pressed for a bit more width and a grass strip at the side, but were turned down.

Inspecting the start of the looped bit in late 20022

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Arising at least partly from public pressure, at a Local Access Forum in 2004 County Hall produced a summary of the numbers of path defect reports. The users publicly challenged these numbers as being a serious understatement of the true position. We are pleased to say that County responded by releasing a more detailed list of these path issues. This first list was not detailed enough to be able to compare meaningfully with user group records. Our request for more detail was granted and County seem to have released all that can fairly readily be released without giving us access to the large internal database. This, after fourteen years of asking, is a very welcome step forward.

Looking at the information, it is quite clear that a large number of path reports have either not been recorded or they have been deleted without notifying the originator.
An extract, relaid out by BADFA in PDF form is available here.

So 2004 saw a big step forward, but there are more such steps needed.

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The path obstructed by locked gate

This path, from Hilfield Lane to Letchmore Heath, has been obstructed since before Christmas by the locked gate shown on the right. The gate had been put there to keep-in some horses which had been put there by someone without the landowner's knowledge or permission. Councillor Michael Colne alerted BADFA to the obstruction in the first instance and he and BADFA asked County Hall to use their powers (and duties) to remove the gate. County started off down the '28 days notice and then some' path which has proved so often to lead nowhere or worse. But to their credit this time they did then take a more pro-active line. BADFA had been due to install a small gate on 21st January, helped by HCC officer Paul Chatterton. But on the 18th it appeared that the obstructing gate has been removed and destroyed and the way is clear again, though rather muddy where the gate was.

What actually happened is unclear, did the Electricity  people, the owners, who had not given permission for the horses, just remove the gate? We heard rumours of loose horses in Hilfield Lane. Details may emerge.

As to the future of this path it seems the Electricity people don't want to use it for horses. A few years ago they offered a 9 metre bridleway in connection with some planning application. That wasn't taken up by Hertsmere because of staff changes at the time. BADFA committee recently confirmed that they would welcome a proper Greenway on this route. The Ramblers' Association is in favour as are both the Open Spaces Society and the British Horse Society.

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Builders have blocked off the only public access from Park Avenue to Hartspring Meadow, a small public park behind the David Lloyd Centre. They have no right to do this unless the path isn't a public path. But it formed until recently the only officially recognised access to the park and it was always the only access from Park Avenue, and 'always' means more than the statutory 20 years needed to give it public status.

The public wanting to use the park have to go onto Hartspring Lane, walk past the David Lloyd Centre (part visible in the photo above) turn down Bushey Mill Lane and climb up the steps that BADFA constructed in 2003. And reverse that when they go home.

We all knew a development was to take place but the revised plans seemed to have gone through before we could blink. It seems Hertsmere failed to tell the developer that they would have to apply for a diversion or at least a temporary stopping up order. The County Council, supposed to be our sharp toothed rights of way watchdog, is so well known to revert to puppyhood where public paths are not yet neatly listed on the definitive map, that there is little point even telling them about it.

Currently we are assisting the local Councillor, Michael Colne, by providing path claim forms. As it happens the Bushey Festival Walk came this way last year and we reported that with a photo on our walks page.

When the development is finished there will be a way through it to the meadow and Hertsmere has undertaken to make that route a public footpath. But it is not right that there will be a year or more of non access and if a reasonable number of claim forms are filled in, we will be pressing for action. If this present path route is to form part of some new houses' gardens, the houses will be hard to sell with a path claim outstanding, so the developer will very likely have an incentive to co-operate.

If you have used this route and have not had a claim form please e-mail BADFA to be sent one.