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| BADFA's Year 2007 News |
| For news from other years use News Index |
# BADFA responds to Ramblers' Association consultation # BADFA responds to path closure consultation # House of lords defeat paths threat # Welsh Office listens to BADFA # Bluebells need your help # Photo Competition launched # BADFA influences Government Guidelines. |
| BADFA responds to Ramblers' Association
consultation 3 Sept 2007 Our chairman, Chris Beney was responding to an important Ramblers' Association consultation on the way forward in his own name when he realised that BADFA would take the same line. Since BADFA is affiliated to the Ramblers' Association, we made the submission jointly. The Ramblers aims are a little bit more restricted than BADFA's, they work primarily for walkers but we cover all types of path user. But we have a lot in common nevertheless. Our response may be seen here (PDF) |
| BADFA responds to path closure
consultation 31August 2007 The
Countryside and Rights of Way Act of 2000 made provision for certain
landholders to apply to divert or stop up paths. They could do so anyway but
there was no pressure on highway authorities to consider the request, let
alone grant it. |
| House of Lords unanimously defeat paths
threat 20 June 2007 The house of
lords today have published their judgment in the Godmanchester case. Lower
courts had appeared to have so strengthened the power of a landowner to
defeat a statutory claim to a right of way by long usage that a vast number
of pending claims would have been lost. The full judgement is at: |
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Welsh Office listens to
BADFA 22 April 2007 We don't often communicate with the Welsh Office, but on the law regarding improving structures across public paths, we consider that any Government proposals or edicts on the topic may well affect the rules in the whole of the UK including our area of South West Herts. So when they consulted on the guidelines we made detailed response. Naturally not all we suggested got into the final document, but some of what we did was indeed incorporated. One item was that the law seemed to allow structures to be improved by agreement, but didn't allow them to be completely removed by agreement. We had suggested that the British Standard for path structures, BS5709, could be used since it defines a British Standard Gap as a structure. A path with a Standard Gap behaves more like a fully open path whilst technically containing a structure. The Welsh Office seem to have accepted this and have included it in their guidance. A Gap as a structure may sound odd, but it ensures that barbed wire etc
is clear of the passageway and it can stop motor vehicles (except
motorbikes) from using the path. |
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Bluebells need your help 3 April 2007 We have lifted this item complete from a Ramblers' Association's newsletter  .
We are sure they won't mind. Bluebells have been voted the most popular wild flowers in the UK, where they flower between May and June, but this beautiful bloom may be at risk as its native woodland habitat falls victim to changing climate conditions, agricultural demands and hybridisation. We [Ramblers] have partnered with the Natural History Museum and Plantlife in making a nationwide plea for people to find, identify and record bluebells in their local area. The records will help build a picture of bluebells in the UK by mapping the distribution of bluebells and revealing when and where bluebells first flower across the country. When out walking this spring, look out for colonies of bluebells growing in your local area and then log your findings on the Natural History Museum website.
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Photo Competition
launched 3 April 2007 BADFA would like more photos of paths in our area. So acting on a suggestion from Phil Wadey we set up a working party to see what could be done. The result is the launch yesterday (2 April 2007) of the competition to run till November. We set up a sub-web for this which can be got at as www.badfa.org.uk/photocomp. |
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BADFA influences
government guidelines 2 April 2007
Widths of paths on Path Orders We are pleased to be able to report that much of what we said has been taken on board, and whilst doubtless others have said some of the same things, we feel our effort was worth while. The guidance is much better than before, clearer and more comprehensive. We are not in agreement with all of it though even now, and we are currently taking up one particular apparent ambiguity in the new text with Defra.
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