Author Topic: I want to walk there..........and why?  (Read 5886 times)

barewirewalker

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Re: I want to walk there..........and why?
« Reply #45 on: 15:07:01, 23/11/18 »
My frustration is that the ROW Department often seems unable to do the basics. The individuals you deal with seem to make the right responses, but then everything goes quiet, so you chase again, then nothing; and then you repeat in a few months when you decide to try again........by which time there's a different ROW Officer, who knows nothing about it, so you explain again etc.......

Hence my question to the LAF: what are they doing to monitor the performance or not of the ROW Department? If the basics aren't being done what hope for anything else?

I firmly believe that there aren't the resources for ROW anymore, if indeed there ever was?

If the LAF isn't checking up on them, who is?
I think the problem with LAFs, apart from the main council not taking them too seriously, is they only have 4 meetings a year. I sent a complaint about maize grown over a footpath to the Cheshire LAF, I got a snotty reply that this was a matter for RoW dept. /send in a formal complaint /no further action/standard procedure. Reason; LAFs deals with overall strategy and policy, despite my have written in a substantial amount of fact that would be fuel for a strategy and policy discussion.

Force of numbers are probably the only real wake up, but sadly the apathy of the 'don't upset the apple cart brigade' will probably win through.

I like to fantasize about real access and have fun putting into operation those small parts I can bring together. When I see an instance; is it worth discussing? Perhaps the 'Privacy ZigZag' I thought was a re-route was a case of getting it wrong, Ninthace's local knowledge makes me question that my 10+ year ago memory of a notice at Ashford Mill. But I have seen too many closures with Cruella DeVille/slades modus operandi on it withdraw any further.

A very active former member of the Rambler's Forum, who transfered here, Histman was doing a walk from the Wash to the Welsh coast. He described a nightmare section of footpath hopping the tops of potato furrows, on a section through Shropshire I went to check, this and found the field being harvested.I walked across the field the section of the crop, where the footpath should have been had the harvester working, so a walked down the cleared/harvested part of the field.
I was half way across the field, when a range rover comes speeding across towards me, with farmer full of the news supplied by his tractor driver that I was not on the Right of Way. Instead of telling his tractor driver that I was doing the sensible thing in avoiding the working machinery, he thinks to show off to his staff and give me a ticking off.
Instead I told him I knew he had not made good the footpath through his crop, this he denied though it was an obvious lie. So I went on to tell him I knew his father, a better farmer than him, he said could not, because his father had been dead for over 20 years, so I described how I had stood in the farmyard, whist buying a straight 8 engine out of an old Massey combine whilst 2 snotty nosed brats ran around the yard. I then suggested another route for myself to walk, he was too surprised to say no, so his tractor driver then saw me walking 'Off Piste' across the rest of the field and over another, to a newly built footbridge that should have been included in the access network.
BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

barewirewalker

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Re: I want to walk there..........and why?
« Reply #46 on: 11:33:11, 25/11/18 »
Should 2 words conjure up a sense of distaste, the words 'Lord Newborough' were enough to put me off the steak in a favorite local pub turned gastro pub some years ago. I had been exploring some possible X Wales routes and came up against The Rhug Estate near Corwen. I was new to the internet then, being a late comer to things IT, but I found out enough to learn that I was not the only one to be inconvenienced by this particular countryside hog. Others were being harassed by his gamekeepers, when trying to reach a trig point or was it a Nuthall or Marylin, not too familiar with peak baggers objectives, I forget now as I turned my attention to the Wayfarer's Gap further south.

So now I am exploring a route from 2 High Bridges over a Shropshire Canal, infrastructure without rights of way over them, which, I believe, have the position to draw long distances of walking away from the highway network. Using Memory Map and Google Earth, plotting gates and field margins and joining up RoWs and having to avoid those legitimate X zones such as Open Prisons and RAF Stations, I come to Peplow Hall, potentially the only non-highway crossing of the River Tern in a 10 miles stretch from it's source. With an Off highway RoW approach to it from either side to suggest it had wider community use. So I googled Peplow Hall, family seat of one Lord Newborough;
Quote
One of three family estates owned and run by Lord Newborough- the other two being the 12,500-acre Rhug estate in Denbighshire and the Glynllifon estate in Gwynedd-Peplow has been his family home for the past 30 years and its impeccably managed farmland is an intrinsic part of the fast-growing, 7,000-acre Rhug Organic Farm business that, last year, earned him the title of Farmers Weekly Diversification Farmer of the Year.Shaking off the jetlag from a recent trip to the Far East, where he regularly promotes sales of the farms’ wide range of organic produce-from beef, wild bison and lamb to chicken, pork and organic fodder-Lord Newborough sets off on a tour of the hall and its grounds, where efficiency and ease of maintenance are clear guiding principles.

Give him credit, he works hard at getting Farmer's Weekly Diversification Farmer of the of the year award, but he seems pretty adept at ensuring others cannot diversify from the countryside asset of access.
BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

barewirewalker

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Re: I want to walk there..........and why?
« Reply #47 on: 12:04:50, 26/11/18 »
I am thinking of awarding the Greedy Countryside Hog award to this location and Lord Newborough, just found a great piece of clip art, which would be great to adorn my decorative maps of corruption, looks great in a slide show, though I think I might get thrown off the internet if I made it public.  ;D

Tried to put the share link to here; https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/pig-bathing-mud-vector-clip-art-591456926

But this is the best I can do. Looks great pasted over a screen shot off Google Earth.
BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

barewirewalker

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Re: I want to walk there..........and why?
« Reply #48 on: 12:20:32, 30/11/18 »
Gunwharfman triggered a memory in another topic, there is a lot we have forgotten about the countryside and the fact that I have some close ties with a disappearing era is perhaps more of a reason why lostways hold such a fascination.
In studying lostways I have started to realise that these ways on there own are not the main issue, it is the reason why they were used, which provides the link to how the modern day access network should be allowed to develop.

Landowners did not know of the movement of people through the countryside, why did those Gypsies appear in that lane every year at that time of year. They had been coming there long before sugar beet and hoeing of this crop was a reason. I have suddenly realised it was because of the location of that 'green lane' and it's position in a more hidden network of ways, which the definitive map has only partially captured.
If we bring into the equation of social need for 'tramping', not as result of a class of people being outcaste but all people needing this link with the countryside tohave a chance of fitness and sanity, then we might start to understand how the ownership of property has to recognised its position in the dynamic of the countryside.
BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

barewirewalker

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Re: I want to walk there..........and why?
« Reply #49 on: 12:21:31, 02/12/18 »
The original experience that brought the title of this topic to mind was walking under a very high bridge over a canal, unlike many canal bridges this one did not have a linking path from the towpath below to the way on the top. Curiosity led to another walk involving some straying from the righteous way to find out to find out what was above.


Somewhere earlier in this topic I have used the phrase 'drawing the the access network away from the highway', a reason many of us prefer to walk in the wide open spaces of National Parks. The balm of the countryside has little chance of comforting the soul, when the constant onslaught to the senses by passing traffic is present.

My second walk showed me how two high bridges could be linked together by a convenient bit of infrastructure, a single sleeper bridge over a ditch, giving access through a probable boundary between to holdings (working farm entities).

Should we expect to be able to visit these structures top and bottom? As part of the canal network they are part of our history, but their original use above did not include public use. Historic features within our countryside will at some stage require repair or even restoration, will a wider public use that fits in with a developing social need, be more reason for their preservation? Is it worth exploring how they could be useful?

A little discovery along a line of approach has revealed a track, with gates that intersect with a right of way, 1/2 a mile of interruption free way linkage that provides direction towards these high bridges. Is there need for a right of way or would a reasonable understanding between leisure user and occupier of the countryside make this way usable?
 
Having noted this, possible line of approach, from due east another length of public RoW caught my eye ENE. One mile of furnished right of way that probable only serves local dogwalkers, which was once a way to the local church, but reverse the line of purpose, and the direction is 2 high bridges over the canal. This RoW exits onto a road, bit less that 200yds along that road is a field gate, from where there is 0.9mile of field margin linking to another RoW.

As previous posters have said, there are plenty of occupiers of the countryside, who will tell you that you cannot walk these ways because they are on 'private land', but as long as I am unsighted, my passage is not noted and no harm is done.
What is the value of these additions to the access network? How much does a line of approach to interesting or useful infrastructure improve countryside access.


BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

 

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