Rights of Way Group
News and news archive

The Sue Ryder Chiltern Challenge Walk:
The Rights of Way Group will again be playing a large part in the organisation of this year’s Sue Ryder Chiltern Challenge Walk to be held on Sunday 7th June, starting from the Nettlebed Hospice. 5 and 13 mile alternatives will be available. Further details can be obtained by phoning Sarah Smith at 01491 641070 or on the web-site at www.suerydercare.org/chilternchallengewalk

Buckinghamshire Local Access Forum
Richard Boas, then one of our Area Secretaries and now Facilitator of our Path Maintenance Volunteers Central Chilterns, was appointed by the County Council to the Buckinghamshire Local Access Forum on its formation in 2003. Richard recently decided after a good stint on the Forum to bring his term to an end. We are very pleased to say that John Coombe, an ex Chairman of our Rights of Way Group and a current member of the Group’s Committee, has been appointed in Richard’s place.

England's 81 Local Access Forums (LAFs) are statutorily prescribed bodies, introduced by the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000. Their main function is to advise their appointing authority on the improvement of public access to land for the purposes of open-air recreation and the enjoyment of the area, but they are required to have regard also to the needs of land management and the desirability of conserving the area’s natural beauty including its flora, fauna and geological and physiographical features.

Chiltern Way Officers
Experience has taught us that we were asking too much in setting one individual thetasks of bringing the Way and its extensions to public attention and of optimising the Society’s part in maintenance and waymarking of the whole long route. We have therefore been very pleased to be able to appoint two new Chiltern Way Officers, one, Stuart Gilmartin, covering parts of the route north roughly of Chenies and Cholesbury, the other Alan Hockley, the parts south.

Monitoring of Access Land
The Rights of Way Group will be putting more emphasis in future on monitoring the Open Access Land in the Chilterns created as a result of provisions of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000. By so doing it will seek to highlight situations where better access to access land or better indication on the ground of its scope and whereabouts is required.

Bucks CC database of path jobs
In a move much welcomed by the Rights of Way Group, Buckinghamshire County Council are now showing parish by parish on their web-site at www.buckscc.gov.uk/bcc/row/rights_of_way.page (see menu on the left side of the page), details about path problems reported to them and of progress in remedying them.

This new information will be very useful to the Group in enabling it to keep track of what is happening about the regular flow of problems it identifies and reports through its network of some 10 Area Secretaries and 85 Path Representatives in Bucks alone. Of course it also means that any member of the public reporting a problem in Bucks. can view progress in dealing with it.

Can you help us monitor rights of way in North Herts or Beds?
We face difficulties in the northern parts of the Chilterns in that we lack an Area Secretary to cover a number of parishes in North Herts. and are very short of Path Representatives both there and in the Chiltern parts of Bedfordshire.

We are very keen to identify people who can help ensure that we monitor paths in the north as well as we do those further south.

If you feel you can spare any time to help in this please let Brian Lawson know on 01494 815814