Andrew Fletcher, Public Rights of Way Officer will present report to Members.

Andrew Fletcher, Public Rights of Way Officer, distributed some handouts and then explained to the Panel the current procedure for ploughing and cropping issues.

The Public Rights of Way team look after the paths, ensure they are opened in the right time and at the end of the process, if there had been a breach, report this to the Rural Payments Agency. This has a very big impact on the farmers as everything is inspected, it is not limited just to the path.

The Local Access Forum discussed this issue at their meeting in early November and had produced a new procedure in section 2.8. There were a few changes;

1.    Make first contact with farmers via telephone to explain the report or issue. This telephone call should agree the date with the farmer for the resolution of the issue based upon the 14 day deadline. Explain that if the works are not done by this deadline the issue will be reported to the RPA.

2.    Take the 14 day deadline from the date that the farmer is contacted. Where necessary agree extension of this deadline up to 28 days, for example where ground conditions do not allow proper reinstatement.

3.    Request farmer to contact RBWM when the works have been done, providing photographic evidence.

4.    If the agreed deadline has not been met this should then be reported to the RPA.

The Rural Forum’s opinion was sought on the proposed changes. The proposal would then be considered by the Rights of Way and Highways Licensing Panel in March 2017.

Points discussed by the Forum included:

·         Those who regularly walk on the paths knew the paths very well and where they were.

·         Other boroughs did not have such rigid conditions.

·         Farmers were not easily contactable, William Emmett offered to send the Public Rights of Way team, a database with all farmer details including email addresses. This should ease the process and resolve issues quickly.

·         The Forum discussed what was meant by resolution. This could be a path marked out and rolled out if it had been ploughed and/or cut if blocked by crops.

·         William Emmett suggested that he give a presentation to the Rural Forum at a future meeting.

Councillor Colin Rayner asked how many miles of footpath there were in the borough, how many complaints were received and who were the complaints generally from. Andrew Fletcher informed the Forum that in total there were approximately 191 miles of public rights of way and there were about 15-20 complaints per year on arable issues. The complaints came from many sources such as walkers, right of way officers and also from certain groups.

Councillor Hilton asked about the consequences for the farming community if they were to foul the legislation. Andrew Fletcher explained that a notice would be served, the crop would be cut at a cost plus an additional 10 % admin fee would be added. Then it would be reported to the Rural Payments Agency (RPA), where they may choose to inspect everything on the Farm.

Mr Copas highlighted that the way forward was good communication between the farmers and the officers and to solve any issues before moving up the scale, resolving issues quickly.

The Chairman suggested that farmers attended the next Rights of Way and Highway Licensing Panel on 7 March 2017.

ACTION: William Emmett to send farmers database to Andrew Fletcher.

ACTION: William Emmett to give presentation at next Forum meeting.

ACTION: Andrew Fletcher to inform farmers of the next Rights of Way and Highway Licensing Panel.