Author Topic: Don't Lose Your Way campaign  (Read 9285 times)

WhitstableDave

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Re: Don't Lose Your Way campaign
« Reply #15 on: 18:39:00, 19/02/20 »
As a result of mentions on the forum, I registered and got to work on some available squares in my area. I agree with comments about the shortcomings of the system, but I've also enjoyed finding paths that I think would be worth (re)instating.
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barewirewalker

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Re: Don't Lose Your Way campaign
« Reply #16 on: 12:20:10, 28/02/20 »
Well one Richard for bringing this link to the forum's attention.
Thanks, Richard. Good news article, and a great effort by the Ramblers - though at this moment their 'Join the search' link is timing out, probably overleaded.

I would like to see this thread pinned so that it is always visible on this site and doesn't become 'lost' among all those that follow it. Then it can come to the attention of all new members and serve as a reminder for the remainder.
However, as suspected it is slipping down the page.

I have not yet joined in, sometimes later I will check how many of the lostways that have caught my interest over the years are on or not. I think the Ramblers approach is rather weak, it must be getting on for 10 years since the British Horse Societies campaign has been on the go, they even run seminars on the legal process of recovery of Lostways. The Lostways already registered so that they will stay alive for legal process in Shropshire are mostly done by BHS members, by the looks of them. The problem with the Rambler's approach it does not indicate how valuable the lostway could be if it is part of the access network.

I have just sent 2 letters to the Outdoors dept. of my county council on specific suggestions on how the access network could look if certain lostways were recognised. The first was on the agenda of the last GOSG meeting, but it only got a legalized reply excusing the Rights of way officers as far as their duties allowed them. The letter drew no discussion from the two stuffed shirt members, who are Ramblers. Perhaps my eviction from the forum by Chair in the form of a landowner is keeping them in line. However I do not rate their local knowledge and creative powers high enough to see the possibilities that these small links on a map, when joined up create a potentially exciting picture with many possibilities.
BWW
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Andies

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Re: Don't Lose Your Way campaign
« Reply #17 on: 16:01:04, 28/02/20 »
I think the Ramblers are really using this as a way of generating data that can be used to argue the case against the 2026 deadline. It is clearly an enormous task to determine the scale of the potential lost ways. The use of volunteers may be less than perfect, as is initially only looking at two map sources, but it is something that can be used as a starting point.
The actual exercise of then looking at individual claims remains as before unless the process is changed and especially I would argue simplified.

barewirewalker

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Re: Don't Lose Your Way campaign
« Reply #18 on: 18:43:59, 28/02/20 »
Sadly that is probably the case 20 years after the CRoW act that created 2026 and 12 years after the Lostway project died.
They are only asking for what I have being doing for the last 10 years, where ever I have suspected that the DM was corrupted, a reasonable assumption based on basic map reading, the cause pointed out to me by young Rights of Way Officer, before he got too far up the promotion ladder to have his lips buttoned.

Had they found a few really choice examples ten years ago and got national editorial for them, there might be real popular interest now. In 2012, when the CLA published a policy on Rights of Way, the Author and/or editor in chief could have been exposed for having a chunk of Offa's Dyke on his estate 10 miles off course of the Offa's Dyke Trail and living so close to an area of 11 square miles without a right way that he couldn't help tripping over the only right of in the district to view his families broad acres.

It is an area that could stand proper forensic investigation of that part lostways have played in social and anthropological significance in our society historically and for our future.
« Last Edit: 22:43:50, 28/02/20 by barewirewalker »
BWW
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richardh1905

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Re: Don't Lose Your Way campaign
« Reply #19 on: 07:33:25, 01/03/20 »

I've got another grump with the site now.  Having complained that there ought to be a way of telling which squares you have already done, it now greys them out and marks them as unavailable.  That would be fine if I had actually finished the square.  However, while I initially started checking both the historic  OS and the Barts maps, I found the Barts was not telling me anything extra so I started ignoring it.  Then I discovered what appeared to be a lost way on the historic OS which wasn't marked as an FP or a BW.  Checking the Barts map showed an old lane which I recorded.  The lane ran on into the next square and into the squares beyond that but they were all greyed out so I could not record the lost way.  Now I want to go back and check my original work but I cannot access it any more.  We need the means to unlock a square already recorded against the user.

This is a concern to me, ninthace - what would stop an unscrupulous landowner signing up and passing all the squares covering their land as "no change", thereby rendering them uncheckable by others?
« Last Edit: 08:05:08, 01/03/20 by richardh1905 »
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harland

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Re: Don't Lose Your Way campaign
« Reply #20 on: 07:47:17, 01/03/20 »
I thought that but then I presumed, perhaps wrongly, that it was only the individual that couldn't sign back into the square rather than everyone.

richardh1905

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Re: Don't Lose Your Way campaign
« Reply #21 on: 08:06:16, 01/03/20 »
I thought that but then I presumed, perhaps wrongly, that it was only the individual that couldn't sign back into the square rather than everyone.


'Fraid not - large areas are greyed out to me. They should allow access for peer review.

Who knows, maybe they will once the bulk of the unchecked squares have been checked.


I have decided not to submit a square if I cannot find anything.
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richardh1905

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Re: Don't Lose Your Way campaign
« Reply #22 on: 08:07:11, 01/03/20 »
Pleased to say that I have found a few old 'FP's down to the forbidden shores of southern Windermere. Duly reported :)


EDIT - Just found, and reported, a cracker of an old FP winding it's way through Holker Park, near Cartmel. Lord Cavendish will not be pleased!  >:D

Problem is, I cannot check the continuity of this path in the adjoining square, as it has been greyed out.
« Last Edit: 08:40:41, 01/03/20 by richardh1905 »
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ninthace

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Re: Don't Lose Your Way campaign
« Reply #23 on: 10:29:48, 01/03/20 »
I am systematically but slowly covering an area covering Mid and North Devon.  It seems to me there are many more squares with missing paths than ones where there is nothing to report.  Are others finding the same?  If so somebody has got their work cut out.
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barewirewalker

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Re: Don't Lose Your Way campaign
« Reply #24 on: 10:39:46, 01/03/20 »
Richard if think your have put your finger on the flaw in the Rambler's basic strategy. So far I have only had a look at the website, tried to sign in but the identity I used for their other footpath scheme seems to have lost my details.

The flaw is the different purposes contributors may be accessing the map for. By blocking a square and not allowing the contribution to be visible it is impossible to assess the continuity of way. Continuity of Way is essential to assess the relevance of away for current and future use, it brings into play other factors that give circumstantial insight into why a way may have been left off the Definitive Map. Much of this can be found out by going out into the countryside and looking at the terrain and speaking to old genuine country people. As I have not yet bothered with this too much yet I do not know if there is a place to leave comments after completing square, as I do not wish to compromise a square.
My suspicions are aroused because I have just looked at an are I have researched; three squares are greyed out and they are the obvious ones but the square that really provides interest to the overall way is available. It would require a bit of inside knowledge to know this. Are the greyed out squares blocked because they have been genuinely filled in, have they been blocked by the landowner or even the county council because they know there is an embarrassing issue here.
However is there is genuine interest in the continuity of way there is always the Library of Scotland's maps to check out. The 1:50k maps are not the best for this purpose, the seamless 1:25k scale is better for spotting anomalies. Then comparing 1880, 1901 and the two pre 1949 editions are better. Further details are sometime found on the 1 mile/6in scale.

Ninethace, when I first started taking an interest I learn that Devon was one of the worst counties for interpreting the DM, I think that was on the old ramblers forum.
The other titbit of interest is Devon is the home of Sarah Slade, adviser on Access for the CLA and according to a fellow member of the Stepping Forward Initiative a rabid anti Access.
BWW
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ninthace

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Re: Don't Lose Your Way campaign
« Reply #25 on: 12:25:33, 01/03/20 »
BWW It appears squares are greyed out because they have been "done" or at least that is what I am finding, rather than any great conspiracy.  I have been plotting lost ways across estates without difficulty.  To prove it to yourself, find Tiverton on the map and track just west of there and you should come to a large greyed out block - that is me.
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Andies

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Re: Don't Lose Your Way campaign
« Reply #26 on: 14:43:12, 01/03/20 »
I think squares are greyed if either you or two other people have already completed them, and are consequently unavailable to you.


With regard to possible corruption of the process I recall reading in the explanatory notes on the site that they wanted two people to complete each square, and that each square would then be checked by a third person. I assume the checker will be someone trustworthy to eliminate the obviously falsely completed squares. I would think if they find evidence of someone corrupting the process they would then remove all that they have completed and revisit these squares.


barewirewalker

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Re: Don't Lose Your Way campaign
« Reply #27 on: 16:46:21, 01/03/20 »
BWW It appears squares are greyed out because they have been "done" or at least that is what I am finding, rather than any great conspiracy.  I have been plotting lost ways across estates without difficulty.  To prove it to yourself, find Tiverton on the map and track just west of there and you should come to a large greyed out block - that is me.
I am not claiming any great conspiracy, it is a matter of interpretation. Walkers and occupiers get into a big enough mess interpreting grey lanes. The 2 squares I am thinking of show a RoW and a lostway but could be seen as a way to private chapel, but the real purpose of the way is hidden by a cluster buildings and access lanes in the next square, because the right of way was to allow the staff of an estate to cross another estate to get to town. Now the main house of the estate was knocked down before between the wars, but that estate was part of another parish, where the owner of the estate fell out with the vicar of the parish. But his staff would have used the front and back drives as their route to church. This stopped when this landowner built his own church, thus disguising the pedestrian flow that would explain why the drives were part of the  footpath network.
BWW
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richardh1905

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Re: Don't Lose Your Way campaign
« Reply #28 on: 18:17:01, 01/03/20 »
I wouldn't put it past the CLA to get their teeth into this.
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barewirewalker

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Re: Don't Lose Your Way campaign
« Reply #29 on: 19:28:13, 01/03/20 »
Well they certainly swamped the No.10 opinion Survey on Rights of Way improvements, I don't think the Ramblers even got started on that because because, if they did anything it was within membership. The CLA membership, despite a far lower numerical factor, is more active financially and responsive to there communication command.
BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

 

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