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| Arial view showing Wilden Footpath No. 6 (Click image to enlarge it) |
Bedford
Borough Council declares on its WEBSITE and elsewhere that there are over 980
kilometres (over 600 miles) of public rights of way in the borough. What is not
said though is how much is available for use or more to my point – how much is
not. It certainly isn’t all available as it should be because numerous paths are
obstructed; temporarily by cultivation and crops or overgrown vegetation for
instance; or more permanently by buildings or for other reasons.
Wilden
Footpath No. 6 (FP6) is obstructed where it passes through the gardens of six
properties in the village of Wilden.
The original
route of the path ran east – west until part of it was diverted in 1973 to
facilitate the building of five properties at what is now Mayes Close, Wilden.
It would seem logical (to me at least) that the diverted part of the path would
follow a route around and outside the boundary of the properties. The Mayes
Close residents believe that to be the case and I have seen evidence that one
of the residents was given information, in a local authority search prior to
purchase, that the path ran outside the property. Others believed it too; there
are claims that the public walked an outer route, and it is said that the
previous owner of the land over which an outer route was allegedly used seemed to accept it
as so.
When the definitive
map was digitised in 1999 the new route of FP6 was seen to be obstructed by the
fencing and gardens of 1 – 5 Mayes Close. The path is also obstructed through
the property known as Verna which was built after the properties at Mayes
Close. North Bedfordshire Borough Council, as the then planning authority, should
have made an order to divert that part of the path to enable development of Verna but didn’t.
Despite
differing views and wishes, it is a matter of legal fact that FP6 runs through
the gardens because that it is where it is depicted as running on the
definitive map.
Various schemes
have been proposed to resolve the problem, the latest being to divert the part of
the path through Verna to a route along and inside its southern boundary, the new
path to be 2 metres wide enclosed by an 8 foot fence and the existing (3-40
foot) leylandii hedge. The proposal plan can be seen HERE. And then, presumably, to insist eventually that the
route through the gardens be made available. It is a scheme I have described as
“half-baked”. In the words of Bedford Borough Council:
“It is of
course, recognised that this proposal leaves the situation at the eastern end
of Mayes Close entirely unresolved. However, finding a comprehensive solution
to the whole problem has proven elusive over the last 13 years and so it is
perhaps worthwhile to seek small incremental gains as opportunities allow rather
than continue to hold out for an all-encompassing solution in vain. It is in
this context that the present proposal is being made.”
The proposal
to make a diversion order has been made by one council officer and the decision
to approve or refuse the recommendation will be made by another council
officer. I think a committee of elected councillors should decide whether or
not public path orders should be made – at least contentious ones but my views
have been disregarded.
In my
opinion an enclosed path at the southern end of Verna leading to a path through
the gardens of 1-5 Mayes Close would not be a path as enjoyable for use by the
public as would one that would run unenclosed and outside (immediately south
of) the properties, along what is a grassed surface agricultural access track.
The owners of that land have not given consent for such a path (although, dear
reader, you may be interested to know that the council, as the highway
authority, has the power to create a public footpath without landowner consent).
I’m not so
sure that the owners of the land over which the access track runs have been asked properly (nicely) or that incentives
have been offered or fully discussed so I have asked the council officer to delay his decision to allow me to make further enquires. The officer has agreed to put
the proposal on hold for three weeks (till 9 July). Better than the Old Wild West
I think where cowboys were sometimes given until noon to sort things out.
