I tried following the field boundary to where I could pick up another footpath
Pasbury attempted to take the sensible alternative to avoid an unsafe situation, that is half the correct procedure but does the law allow the other side an equal response?
Is the answer to make the legislation on the type of livestock more complicated? That legislation is 30 or 40 years out of date because of the influx of other breeds to this country since entry into the common market.
The ordnance survey maps are littered with precedence of the obvious alternative, and that is 'legal detour'. Or as the Scottish Land Reform Act terms it 'A right of Responsible Access'. The precedence I have noticed are detours where the way, either highway or other are liable to become flooded and so impassable, an alternative route is found along field margins, many of these have been incorporated as rights of way in the definitive map, often described as anomalies by those without knowledge of field drainage to see them for what they really are.
It would then make a duty of care fall on the landowner to ensure that an alternative route being possible, where there may be a perceived risk. A duty of care that all other professions have as a legal obligation.
There is some previous criticism of the part the NFU plays in this, it is the CLA that lobbies property issues. It is quite proper that the NFU should defend farmers, where the landowner continues to hang onto outdated privileges.