Breadcrumbs
rights of way improvement plans (AP02/12)
FOR DECISION
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Relevance to Strategy
and Corporate Plan:
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Staff and financial
implications:
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Main issues to
concern the Board:
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Background
1. The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 introduced a new duty for local highway authorities to prepare Rights of Way Improvement Plans. The duty will commence once statutory guidance on how to prepare the plans has been issued by the Secretary of State. DEFRA consulted on draft guidance between January and March 2002 (copy attached) and expect to issue a final version later this year. The authorities will then have 5 years in which to complete their first plans. Funds for Improvement Plans have been provided for in the Standard Spending Assessments; but nothing has been provided for implementation.
2. In 1999 DETR invited the Countryside Agency to draft the statutory guidance which we did, seeking the views of NCAF, the Rights of Way Review Committee, the County Surveyors Society and representatives of disabled user groups. The version DEFRA have consulted on is close to the version provided by the Agency. We have therefore agreed with DEFRA that we will not formally respond to the consultation, but instead will be involved in the process of refining the final version of the document once responses to the consultation have been received. This will take place in May 2002 and will involve seeing the overall analysis of the responses along with some of the more substantial replies. It will allow the Agency to advise on any changes to be made to the draft.
Scope of the plans
3. The legislation requires local authorities to assess "the extent to which local rights of way (and cycle tracks) meet the present and likely future needs of the public". To do this the draft guidance requires local authorities to look at all types of linear and open access and not just existing rights of way. They will need to undertake a full audit of the existing network including promoted routes, recreation attractions and sites and routes provided by private land owners such as the National Trust, Environment Agency and the Forestry Commission.
4. Nevertheless, the existing 190,000 kilometres of rights of way are a good starting point for creating a network of routes, away from the main highways, which meet the needs of people. Because they are public rights they can not be closed or diverted without following legal procedures involving public consultation and they therefore offer long-term certainty.
5. Authorities will need to consult with the public about what they want and will then identify the action they propose to take. This could take the form of a commitment to improve the management of existing rights of way, or proposals to secure an improved network to meet the Government's aim of better provision for walkers, cyclists, equestrians and people with mobility problems (para 1.1.7 of draft guidance). The assessment must also consider the management and improvement of Byways Open to All Traffic (BOATs) which are used mainly by walkers, cyclists and equestrians but have a right of way for vehicles. Although it is not possible to create new BOATs, the preparation of a rights of way improvement plan provides an opportunity to look at how to respond to demand for off-road motor recreation.
6. The draft guidance refers to tourism, health, sustainable transport and improved access for all, as matters to take into account in preparing the plans. Local authorities need to take account of other plans and strategies, including relevant policies in structure and local plans, local transport plans, walking and cycling strategies and recreation strategies where they exist. Within this scope we have identified three main principles:
A. Broad-based plans
7. The draft guidance encourages local authorities to prepare broad-based plans which take account of the need to improve the network of off-road routes for leisure, health, daily journeys and tourism. This approach will provide more reasons for local authorities and others to invest in rights of way.
8. More promoted routes and in particular short circular walks can provide more opportunities for small scale enterprise and farm diversification. The National Trails and most other promoted routes are made up of rights of way and help to support tourism related enterprise. Better networks near to where people live, particularly in and around towns and cities, can give people more choice about how to make local journeys and provide places for regular exercise (including dog walking for example) for an increasingly sedentary population. All of these link into many of the Agency's priorities.
9. The Rights of Way Improvement Plan Guidance is an important document which will steer the direction of future work on improving linear access networks for all types of user, for both leisure and for travel. The guidance should expect the plans to be broad based in order to show how the network will be improved for a variety of reasons and these reasons should back the case to invest more in improving the network. The Agency could support this process by undertaking more research to provide better factual information to demonstrate the relationship between rights of way and tourism, health and non-motorised travel for people wishing to use their car less.
B. Forward looking plans
10 In its advice to the Government in 1999, the Countryside Commission recommended that "the Government should give highway authorities a new duty to review the adequacy of the rights of way network in their area periodically - say every ten years. ..... Highway authorities should be required to prepare and implement programmes of new creations to address any needs identified through the review." We have continued to argue that Improvement Plans must be about improving networks and not about maintaining existing rights of way.
11. Local authorities already have duties to keep a legal record of rights of way, to maintain them to a standard fit for use, and to signpost from roads. These duties are not always fulfilled as we reported in the 2000 survey of the condition of rights of way. We are working with DEFRA, DTLR and representatives of highway authorities to develop best value reporting, supplemented with local indicators, to provide information about the condition of the network and the legal record. We also continue to advocate the use of Milestone Statements, or similar business plans, to set targets for improving the legal record and the condition of rights of way (see Research Note 42). We will encourage the Government to use section 71 of the CROW Act to reinforce the need for good information on which to monitor progress towards meeting the Government commitment in the Rural White Paper for a 10% improvement in recording, maintaining and promoting rights of way by 2005.
12. Some believe that improvement plans should focus on improving the condition of existing rights of way before looking at how to improve the network. This approach is likely to be adopted in Wales where there has been no National Target or Milestones approach.
13. Paragraph 2.1.6 of the draft guidance states that improvement plans must not detract from highway authorities doing their existing rights of way duties and that the plans may highlight the need to 'strengthen' the resources allocated. We disagree with this approach. If the improvement plans become the main way of specifying how an authority will meet existing duties, it will detract from the additional need to look forward to how to improve the overall network.
C. Inclusive plans
14. In order to meet the statutory requirement to assess 'the extent to which local rights of way meet the present and likely future needs of the public', the draft guidance advises authorities to use market research or other techniques to test whether the network provides people with what they need. In some areas, the techniques will need to take account of visitors to the area as well as local people (2.3.9). The Agency has piloted ways of assessing the adequacy of the network, with the help of consultants and as part of the Integrated Access Demonstration Projects. We intend to share this information (referred to in paragraph 2.3.10 of the draft guidance) and may need to continue to help local authorities to refine the techniques used to consult the public about demand for better linear and open access. Effective public consultation will be dependent on the public being aware of the potential for the network to improve the quality of their lives. The foot and mouth outbreak demonstrated that people missed being able to use rights of way and access land when it was not available and rural businesses suffered from lost income. Nevertheless, where rights of way exist and are well managed they are often taken for granted, and where they are neglected or do not exist the situation is accepted. In the climate of Best Value and improving local authority services in response to public demand, demonstrating demand will be an important factor in determining whether resources are allocated by local authorities to improve their rights of way network.
15. We will also provide guidance on how to assess the need to improve the network for people with different degrees of ability and different backgrounds. We have established six pilot projects, which draw on work the Agency has been involved in for several years, to assess and test ways of improving access for disabled people. We also plan to undertake a diversity review (a Rural White Paper commitment) which will help to understand the needs of socially excluded groups.
16. The draft guidance specifies that local authorities must involve Local Access Forums in preparing and reviewing their plans. However, the draft does not specify that the consultation should involve all groups with an interest in the network of rights of way (prescribed organisations). We will encourage DEFRA to be more specific about this in the statutory guidance and authorities to take an inclusive approach to consultation.
17. An inclusive consultative process will inevitably lead to some conflicting expectations. The draft guidance states that while rights of way improvement plans are about improving rights of way for the benefit of the public, it is nevertheless important that the interests of land managers are taken into account, together with those of heritage and nature conservation. The improvement plan process is not intended to make specific recommendations about particular paths and any changes to the network will need to be dealt with through the normal procedures. However, should the Agency accept that an improvement plan could make recommendations to deal with diversions, for example, for land management reasons? There may be requests to make this more explicit in the guidance with the risk that this will be a license to make wholesale changes to the network which are not necessarily in the interest of the public. We recommend that the wording of the guidance issued by the Secretary of State does not change the balance of interest in favour of land managers, but that land management, heritage (including traditional routes across fields) and nature conservation issues should be taken into consideration.
Implementation of plans
18. There is no duty for a local authority to implement its Rights of Way Improvement Plan, presenting both a challenge, and an opportunity. The risk is that the plans will be prepared in a minimalist way or will be ambitious and then put to one side until it is time to revise them. Alternatively, because there is no statutory duty to implement the plans there is more potential for authorities to bid for other sources of funding (for example from the Lottery funding bodies) and to encourage land owners to take advantage of the access component of Agri-Environment Schemes. There is also potential to use other local authority budgets such as the local transport plan fund.
19. We also expect the process of preparing the plans to provide more reasons for investing in rights of way and to raise public expectations. Local access forums will have a role to play in advising local authorities on implementing their plans and will need to find ways of influencing authorities. The Agency could help to support this role at the local and regional level (influencing the regional development agencies to support improvements for example) but there will be staff time implications, particularly at the regional level in future years, which are not currently allocated in the corporate plan.
Next steps
20. We plan to work with DEFRA to refine and complete the statutory guidance and then work with some authorities to develop 'fast-track' improvement plans to set a standard for the rest. We also plan to provide guidance to local authorities on techniques for assessing demand and on sources of funding and mechanisms for implementing improvement plans. We expect to add all of this material to the Public Rights of Way Good Practice Guide which is currently on a CD Rom but which we believe should become a more dynamic source of good practice on the Internet. We have also bid for funds to support the implementation of demonstration rights of way improvement plans, from 2004/05, in the Spending review bid. Annex 1 lists the main projects planed in 2002/03.
Resources required
21. We currently have 0.5 FTE allocated to tasks related to improvement plans in the Enjoying the Countryside Branch business plan for 2002/03. This will be supported by activity in the regions ( around 0.5 FTE in total) and in Wider Welcome team (by building on the Integrated Access Demonstrations in the north-west and south-east, and through support for training). The budget is less that £100,000 in 2002/03.
Risks and mitigation measures
22. There are no significant risks inherent in providing advice to DEFRA at this stage. But these is a danger of raising expectations of activity and funds as part of a process which starts with a duty to prepare plans but currently provides few clues as to how the implementation is to be funded.
File ref: 18256
Annex 1
Countryside Agency action
There are a number of things which the Agency plans to do to support the improvement plan process:
Demonstrate good practice
a. During 2002/03, the Agency plans to work with some local authorities to develop model, or exemplar, Improvement Plans on a fast-track basis. These would set the standard for other plans and would be shared to demonstrate good practice. We will begin to approach authorities about this in spring 2002. Trainingb. The Agency is researching training needs resulting from CROW Act Part 1 and II and will consider the specific needs relating to Improvement Plans as part of that process. We expect to support and influence the training provided by others rather than act as a direct provider.Implementing the plans
c. We plan to provide advice on the mechanisms and sources of investment available to put the Improvement Plans into practice. This will include: bidding to the Government for an Agency funded programme in the regular spending reviews; exploring the potential for lottery funding, sponsorship and European funding including InterregIII. Implementation funds will not be required until the first plans are complete which is unlikely to be before 2004/5. d. We will also continue to develop the Discovering Lost Ways project which, we believe, will help to fill some gaps in the network particularly for higher rights users.e. We will use the experience gained from the Greenway pilot projects to encourage good working partnerships which help to create better networks for all users.f. We will aim to influence the next Local Transport Plan Guidance to recognise the relevance of non-motorised networks to sustainable transport planning.g. As a statutory consultee on all Improvement Plans, the Agency will provide advice and comment during their preparation, both directly and through the Local Access Forums. This process will be supported by the good practice distilled from the fast-track demonstration plans .