Author Topic: Footpaths ploughed and sown  (Read 3745 times)

strawy

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Re: Footpaths ploughed and sown
« Reply #15 on: 03:03:32, 06/05/20 »
Rapeseed..
Wide enough path when sewn,its still visible in full bloom(hands and knees) but almost impossible to get thru,not farmers fault,did their bit..
Ive done many detours along field edges,for various reasons,farmers have not been bothered,i think they recognise "sensible" walkers..
Personally try to avoid treading on crops,even on the edges..

ninthace

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Re: Footpaths ploughed and sown
« Reply #16 on: 09:58:51, 06/05/20 »
I was following the Exe Valley Way a couple of years back. I came to a field full of some form of root crop where the path had not been made good. It was a long way round and short way across so I went for it.  Trouble was it had rained earlier on and those leaves really held the water.  I got soaked.  Since it was a long distance path, I bubbled the farmer to the LA via their website when I got home.
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barewirewalker

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Re: Footpaths ploughed and sown
« Reply #17 on: 12:53:49, 06/05/20 »
I was in south Cheshire 2years ago. Field of Maize with drill rows across the line of travel of a right of way crossing field. Field margins were a jungle of bramble, briar overgrown hedge and nettles. 200 yds to block several miles of A grade RoW. Extremely attractive terrain supported by a number of very attractive pubs and so primary objectives.

I emailed the Cheshire Local Access Forum stating how the attitude of a single occupier was having a disproportionate effect the local amenities. I got a snotty reply that the Forum only dealt with overall strategic matters and complaints about individual footpath obstructions were a matter for their RoW dept.


Talking to a local small holder I discovered I was probably in Cholmondeley land, where the actions of the tenants probably reflect the real attitude of the landowners to access, though they go extreme corporate lengths to give a different public face.


There was a simple way to show managerial responsibility to access. The crop should have been drilled in the direction of the RoW in that part of the field, at 28 inch rows the only part of the crop to be lost would be the headlands, where the stiles are.
« Last Edit: 13:00:05, 06/05/20 by barewirewalker »
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Dyffryn Ardudwy

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Re: Footpaths ploughed and sown
« Reply #18 on: 15:05:41, 06/05/20 »
If ive encountered a field full of newly sown crops, and i have a right of way to trample a path through them.

Would i soldier on, oblivious to the fact that a farmer is trying to carry out his livelihood ?

No is the answer to that, but i am sure there are countless others, seeing their right of way blocked, who trample down a field of corn or other crop, than make a deliberate detour to avoid them.

Over the years, ive encountered quite a few fields full of crops, and i can remember one instance, in Wiltshire, back in the 1980s, that i had to take a lengthy detour to avoid destroying a farmers livelihood.



Its just the way i am, i always try and think of others first,  and how i would react, if it was my field that a group of walkers decided to walk straight through.
« Last Edit: 15:09:05, 06/05/20 by Dyffryn Ardudwy »

pdstsp

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Re: Footpaths ploughed and sown
« Reply #19 on: 15:42:08, 06/05/20 »
While agreeing with your normal actions, I do not think that walking across a field in a straight line will destroy the crop and/or the farmer's livelihood.

ninthace

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Re: Footpaths ploughed and sown
« Reply #20 on: 16:44:52, 06/05/20 »
Especially as he knows the path is there. The farmer too, should think of others.  If he were to reinstate the path, people are less likely to stray and destroy more crop.  The long distance path that passes near us is always reinstated as the last act before the tractor leaves the field.
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Apache

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Re: Footpaths ploughed and sown
« Reply #21 on: 17:47:57, 06/05/20 »
Hi,
I had a recent discussion and I wondered what everyone's thoughts are. Just recently on my walks I come across footpaths that go straight across a field are being ploughed and sown. Now do you follow the footpath straight across or follow the fields edge to avoid walking through the field? I nearly always follow where the path should be, as the farmer should maintain the path and following the field edge adds distance to the walk.


Whats your thoughts?


It could be that it is just not worth making the footpath good and the farmer is relying on walkers to trample a new path. Technically no right of way exists around the edge of a field if the right of way goes across it. Farmers are fully aware of their responsibilty. So I stay on the right of way which is relatively easy to do with SatNav.



https://www.ramblers.org.uk/go-walking/group-finder/areas/northumbria/rights-of-way---potential-problems.aspx


A footpath running along a field edge must not be ploughed.  A path crossing a field should not be ploughed where possible - and if it is ploughed (eg. when sowing or cultivating a crop) the path must be re-instated within 14 days. If the width of a path is recorded on the Definitive Map, then that is the legal width of the path.  If no width is recorded, the minimum width for footpaths is 1 metre across a field and 1.5 metres on the field edge.

WhitstableDave

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Re: Footpaths ploughed and sown
« Reply #22 on: 18:20:00, 06/05/20 »
Far from destroying a farmer's livelihood, I prefer to think I'm probably doing them a favour.  :angel:

If I'm the first to walk across a ploughed or planted field, I'll use my Satmap to make sure I'm exactly on the PRoW. Then, when or if someone else wants to cross the same field, they can follow my footprints or the path I've made. If enough people cross the field, I will have helped reinstate the path that the farmer ought to have reinstated - and in exactly the right place.

If, however, I don't cross the field and those who come later are using paper maps (or have no map) then it's entirely possible that multiple tracks and treading-downs will be made across the crop, which clearly wouldn't be a Good Thing.

I've always thought that it's in the farmer's best interest to reinstate paths simply because doing so shows people where they're expected to walk.
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Mel

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Re: Footpaths ploughed and sown
« Reply #23 on: 18:43:45, 06/05/20 »
It is making me chuckle that we're all gagging to get out "into the wilds" then complaining because there isn't a maintained path across a field  ;D 


WhitstableDave

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Re: Footpaths ploughed and sown
« Reply #24 on: 19:01:28, 06/05/20 »
It is making me chuckle that we're all gagging to get out "into the wilds" then complaining because there isn't a maintained path across a field  ;D

I take your point Mel, but I guess one's perspective depends on where one usually walks.

The areas that are (for no good reason I can think of) often thought of as 'walking' areas (such as various moors and certain northern hilly places) tend to have easy paths and relatively few obstacles, such as ploughed and planted fields. On the other hand, here in Kent, crossing crops and looking for missing paths are serious issues!  :)
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Mel

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Re: Footpaths ploughed and sown
« Reply #25 on: 19:55:19, 06/05/20 »
It's an issue that "crops" up every year  :D




Jac

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Re: Footpaths ploughed and sown
« Reply #26 on: 08:36:05, 07/05/20 »
It's an issue that "crops" up every year  :D
Did you bring your coat, Mel?
So many paths yet to walk, so little time left

barewirewalker

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Re: Footpaths ploughed and sown
« Reply #27 on: 09:30:09, 07/05/20 »
A thought for those concerned about farmers livelihoods. When I was taught my farming, rolling a cereal crop with a Cambridge roller (a ribbed roller) was a cultivaton done at the 3 leaf stage to encourage the plant to tiller, create more shoots from the base node and thus stimulate more seed heads per plant. Walking on a cereal crop could be beneficial pre the jointing stage of the crop.

Of course another significant change in the agricultural scene since the notion of private land was created by the 1949 Act is tramlines. Together with extended field margins, spray barriers for watercourses, these are areas of unproductive agricultural land, created by modern farming techniques, which an enlightened landowning policy could use to extend and make more effective the PRoW network of access.

Just as a matter of interest, when DEFRA calculate the productive acreage of land for Single Farm Supplements they actually deduct the area of ground taken up by PRoWs.
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Jac

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Re: Footpaths ploughed and sown
« Reply #28 on: 07:38:15, 08/05/20 »
Just as a matter of interest, when DEFRA calculate the productive acreage of land for Single Farm Supplements they actually deduct the area of ground taken up by PRoWs.

How ridiculous.
So many paths yet to walk, so little time left

barewirewalker

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Re: Footpaths ploughed and sown
« Reply #29 on: 09:22:54, 08/05/20 »
How ridiculous.
Does seem so doesn't it.

But there are many curious anomalies related to access that do not seem to make sense. That is why I seem to be alone in separating the landowner from the farmer, as two distinct and separate identities, when trying to make sense of access policy.


The greatest anomaly of all, is the landowners hostility to public access to our countryside, when it is now proven that is a resource with huge wealth creating potential for the rural economy. For the Farmer the infinitesimal loss of production from access is hugely offset by the PR power of the access network, yet it is the landowner interest that has both historically and currently opposed the public having a greater freedom of our countryside. 


But don't get too upset about this particular anomaly, they get nearly £100 an acre for SFS and make no effort to encourage walkers to use them, when they are adjacent to horrendously busy roads that are clearly dangerous. In fact they will barb wire the tops of gates to make any attempts for safer ways impossible.
BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

 

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