Farewell to kissing-gates? Summer 2008
An abuse of procedures at St James's Place, Brighton  Autumn 2007
Pressure on heaths  Autumn 2007
Defra visits Dorset  Spring 2007
Access to the coast  Autumn 2006
Weaverham: a special place  Autumn 2006

Farewell to kissing-gates?

An article from Open Space Summer 2008
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Rosie Norris of the Disabled Ramblers sets out issues which should concern us all.

In November 2007 the government issued a statement urging councils to increase countryside accessibility, specifically referring to the removal of stiles and kissing-gates. The reaction was as though the sky had fallen in, as a host of no doubt well-intentioned, but woefully ill-informed, people leapt to the defence of these structures.

The first misconception was that disabled people were out to ruin the countryside. This could not be further from the truth. Disabled ramblers, like, I imagine, the majority of disabled people, treasure the beauty of the countryside and worry about its fragility and vulnerability. We are fiercely keen for the countryside to remain essentially as it is, and we are not asking for tussocks to be levelled, marshes drained and clifftop paths made safe.

We recognise there will always be some inaccessible terrain, but there are many areas still open to us, and there would be vastly more if there were fewer stiles and small kissing-gates.

A second common misconception was that disabled people only try to gain access to the countryside in standard wheelchairs. Walkers use boots, disabled ramblers most often use mobility vehicles (or in some cases specially-adapted, heavy-duty wheel-chairs). While we use standard wheelchairs or powered chairs on some easy routes, when the going gets tougher we turn to heavy-duty vehicles—different beasts altogether. 

Tramper
My vehicle, a Tramper, copes happily with 1 in 4 gradients and takes uneven country tracks, mud, streams, light snow and ploughed fields in its metaphorical stride. Machines like these find little problem with a variety of terrain and have no need therefore for any wholesale modification of the countryside.

We do however call for the removal of stiles, and the dismantling or modification of small pedestrian kissing-gates.

At the moment, disabled people cannot be sure that a walk they have chosen from a map will be free of such impediments. While able-bodied walkers merely grab their Ordnance Survey maps and boots and can expect to get along the paths, disabled people have to forgo this spontaneity as no OS maps or, in my experience, council leaflets show the position of barriers. We have to rely on the kindness of able-bodied supporters checking out the route beforehand, to avoid having to turn around and to ensure there is a way through to our planned destination.

Centrewire’s Woodstock medium-mobility kissing-gate allows passage of single prams and manual wheelchairs. Photos: Tom Bindoff, Centrewire.

Kissing-gates and stiles have been with us for centuries and it is difficult to calculate their number. Suffolk County Council, for example, has 2,500-odd stiles and around 1,740 kissing or other gates. Multiply these by the number of counties in England and Wales and you see the size of the problem and the number of people affected—not just disabled people in mobility vehicles and families with baby buggies, but also, where there are stiles, people with visual impairment and ageing walkers and dogs who lack agility.

Barriers
The number of barriers is increasing. New small kissing-gates continue to be added to the rights-of-way network, many of which deny accessibility to legitimate user groups. The dimensions of these structures vary widely.

To be acceptable, kissing-gates need to be wide enough to cater not only for larger cross-country baby-buggies and mobility vehicles for disabled ramblers but also for the wider public (literally and figuratively). This means that the gate (the moving part of the structure) when fully open leaves a distance of 1.6 metres between the end of the gate and the stationary part of the structure.

A proportion of the funding for these smaller, inaccessible, kissing-gates comes from the public purse. It’s unacceptable for public resources to be used on discriminatory measures.

However, there are some encouraging signs. Buckinghamshire has 4,000 stiles and each year 200-300 of these are removed. Hertfordshire County Council is a trail blazer, aspiring to remove all its inaccessible kissing-gates and stiles over a period of time. The East Berkshire Group of the Ramblers’ Association has been campaigning for years to have stiles replaced with more accessible openings. The group even pays for gates on selected routes. The council installs the new gate with agreement from the owner.

Priorities
Realistically though, increased countryside access will only be achieved gradually, as priorities and funding allow. No one is asking for a wholesale, immediate removal of all of these obstacles.

The Disabled Ramblers seek replacement of impassable barriers on a phased and planned basis, focusing on paths and routes that are in reasonable condition and able to be used by properly equipped and supported disabled people. It makes sense to start on paths which only require the removal of a few barriers to make them accessible. These changes can be incorporated as targets into councils’ rights-of-way improvement plans.

The primary purpose of kissing-gates and stiles is to contain stock. Clearly farmers and landowners have a duty in law to protect themselves and their stock.

Rosie Norris uses Centrewire’s Woodstock large-mobility kissing-gate. A RADAR key allows passage by legitimate users.

For a path running through grazed land next to a road, kissing-gates with a RADAR bypass key could be installed. In fields away from the road we support the British Standard 5709 (2006): Gaps, Gates and Stiles. The standard states that, if a gap cannot be left open, barriers should be considered in the following order: gates (two-way, then one-way), accessible kissing-gates and finally stiles, which should only be used in exceptional circumstances.

Unreasonable
It’s unreasonable for a kissing-gate to be installed between fields in order to control stock to a higher level of security, when often the fence or hedge around the rest of the field is not secure and stock can escape at will through it. Self-closing gates here can both achieve control of stock and allow ingress and egress.

It is argued that these larger kissing-gates allow motorbikes through as well. Some bikes can get through some kissing-gates and other motorbike barriers—and probably no motorbike barrier is 100 per cent successful.

But unless these kissing-gates are fully accessible they will stop all mobility-vehicle users, who have a right to be there.

Disabled people must not be barred from the public rights-of-way network because of the misdeeds of others. Resolving motorbike access falls to the police. We know that funding, and therefore police manpower, is often limited. However, we also know these problems can be addressed by close liaison between rights-of-way officers and the local police force, where a tip-off can lead to a successful blitz of the area. But there must be a will to resolve these problems.

Summing up
In summary, we say the following.
·     Disabled people aren’t out to ruin the countryside.
·    Our mobility vehicles are able to cope with a variety of terrain without any countryside alteration.
·    Stiles and small kissing-gates are impenetrable barriers to a wide section of the public, not just disabled people.
·    We seek a gradual, phased and reasonable start to the removal of these structures, or the provision of alternative, accessible ways round these obstacles, with any replace-ment structures complying with BS 5709 (2006).
·    We want disabled people to have greater access to the public rights-of-way network than the current, pitifully low, 1–2 per cent of public paths. 

Challenge
We recognise with gratitude the help and support we have received over the years in achieving greater accessibility to the countryside. We warmly welcome those who might also like to rise to the challenge of making the countryside more open to everyone. Visit www.disabledramblers.co.uk/.

An abuse of procedures at St James’s Place, Brighton
An article from Open Space Autumn 2007
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In 2005 we objected to a stopping-up order for St James’s Place in Brighton. It went to a public inquiry, at which we and the Ramblers’ Association were represented by Colin Bennett from Hove. Unfortunately the inspector confirmed the order.

The order was made under section 257 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, on the grounds that it was necessary to stop up the route to carry out a development for which planning permission had been given. That development was none other than the gate which was to block the path!

Colin rightly considers this to be an abuse of the procedures, and has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights. The case is in now in Strasbourg but he can add to his submission at any time. Since he has had no legal advice, he would like our members and others to look at his blog where he has put all the paperwork, and to offer him advice. His blog is at www.bennettsworld.blogspot.com. Go to ‘all my online dossiers’ and then to ‘St James’ Place—objection to stopping-up order’. If you can help, please send him an email to colinbbennett@palmeira.org.uk. (Please note that the website address was incorrect in the article in Open Space, autumn 2007, page 9.)
 

Pressure on heaths
An article from Open Space Autumn 2007
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The common lands of the Thames basin heaths are under many pressures. Kate Ashbrook explains.

The Thames basin heaths are classified as a Special Protection Area (SPA), due to their significant populations of three species of heathland birds (woodlark, nightjar and Dartford warbler).

The SPA consists of relict fragments of lowland heath, scattered across Berkshire, Hampshire and Surrey. It covers 8,400 hectares, of which 4,000 form part of the Ministry of Defence training estate. Many of these heaths are commons or other access land, and some of them have rights to ride too, under section 193 of the Law of Property Act 1925. About 25 per cent of the area has no access or access is restricted (mostly due to the MoD).

Wisley Common, Surrey, in the SPA.   Photo: Bob Milton

Identified

Unfortunately, many of the sites identified for housing in the South East are close to the SPA. Natural England, whose duty is to protect the SPA, is concerned that increased recreational pressure, especially dog-walking, will have an adverse effect on the bird populations.

So it has been urging the 15 local authorities which have the SPA in their territory to refuse all new residential development within 400 metres of the SPA, and to adopt mitigation measures for development between 400 metres and five kilometres from it.

One of these measures is the provision of Suitable Alternative Natural Green Space (SANGS), funded by a tariff on house builders. But where the authority insists on a SANGS, there have been delays and even a moratorium on house building as the alternative land has to be identified and obtained.

Meanwhile, as part of the South East England Regional Assembly’s South East Plan for growth over the next 20 years, a report on the impact on the Thames basin heaths has been prepared. This followed public consultation for which Bob Milton represented the society.

Recommendations

This report contains many recommendations. In the short term, there should be a plan to establish how the conflict between public pressure on the SPA and the need for development can be met; no development should be allowed within 400 metres of the SPA unless it has been demonstrated that this will not lead to further recreational use of it. For residential development between 400 metres and five kilometres, there should be appropriate mitigation, such as SANGS, and there should be a list of land available for use as SANGS with details of the costs of bringing it to a suitable standard.

In the medium term there should be detailed access and habitat plans for the sites in the SPA, and further work into their carrying capacity and tolerance of increased visitor pressure, since Natural England’s figures were not considered to be sufficiently robust. Similar work should be done for the proposed SANGS. Further ahead there should be a co-ordinated wardening scheme for the SPA with education and information about its value.

We are emphasising the importance of common land in the SPA with its rights to walk and, in some cases, to ride. The SANGS must be genuine, new open space, not just existing access-land with improved facilities— which presents a challenge as such land may not be available in the right place.

Any co-ordinated wardening scheme should cover the SANGS as well as the SPA. Monitoring is essential, of the impacts of residential development on SPAs, and the effect of SANGS on SPAs. The society must be consulted on proposals concerning common land.

While we shall not become involved in the details for each site, we have a role in helping to set the principles by which decisions, particularly those about access and recreation, are made.
 

Defra visits Dorset
An article from Open Space Spring 2007
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Hugh Craddock leads the way over Corfe Common in Dorset.  Photo:  Rodney Legg

Rodney Legg explains how his native heath is being restored on common land.

The commons team from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) from London and Bristol met on 23 November 2006 for a fact-finding visit to the Dorset heaths.

In response to a call from Hannah McMinn, policy officer in the common land (registration) branch of Defra, I chose the locations that would give them a feel of the great open landscape that is now being re-created with grant aid, to reverse the worst excesses of the agricultural revolution. Each high-lighted different problems which were explained to us on the ground by wardens from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), Natural England and the National Trust.

First, heading into the Isle of Purbeck, we crossed the River Piddle and Wareham Common which was sliced apart by a new road two decades ago. ‘Was exchange land provided?’ asked Hugh Craddock, head of the common land (registration) branch, in a question I failed to answer on the hoof. 

At Arne, where no common land registrations got through the legislative hoops, the RSPB has a harbour-side reserve for the benefit of the Dartford warbler which was brought to the point of extinction as a British breeding bird by the cold winter of 1962-63. Rhododendron and pines have been removed. Between Arne Heath and Stoborough Heath, a conifer-covered site of special scientific interest is also on the point of negotiated tree-felling under a subsidised management scheme which will turn it back into semi-natural heathland.

Acquisition

‘That land was available to buy before the trees were planted but the opportunity was missed,’ we were told as storm clouds turned Shakespeare’s ‘blasted heath’ into something more immediately Hardyesque. ‘Acquisition is often not the most expensive option,’ the Stoborough warden continued. ‘We hope to buy more land.’  Around Stoborough and across to former clay-pits at Corfe Castle, recently ploughed heathland is being restored to a mix of grass and heath, with public access allowed across the entirety irrespective of whether it carries open-country categorisation. In some parts there are cattle-grids, and lands in different ownerships—including one pocket of registered common—have been turned into a single cattle-range. Rewilding, Dorset style, is working, courtesy of an amalgam of interests and methods.

Sika deer also contribute and we glimpsed the main herd—upwards of 250 animals—pounding their way inland from the marshes beside Poole Harbour. Most are female, due to a disproportionate number of stags having been taken out by stalkers, but talk of a cull is constrained by public-relations implications for the conservation bodies concerned. ‘It’s just like Serengeti,’ I said, to be reminded that it needed the reintroduction of the lynx to balance the ecological food-chain.

From our lunchtime venue at the Scott Arms on the other side of the Purbeck Hills we looked down on the green and brown expanse of Corfe Common, a mile across and half a mile wide, along a ridge of Wealden sands straddled with Bronze Age burial mounds. Here there has been a commoners’ committee for many years, which still meets each November, with dozens of householders having the right to turn out an unsustainable total of several hundred animals.
Fortunately, these days, none of these rights is exercised. The grazing is therefore let on licence by the National Trust on a much smaller scale, mainly for horses and ponies. Not long ago it was an impenetrable wilderness but much of the bracken and gorse was cleared after the trust inherited the land on the death of landowner Ralph Bankes in 1982.

Unfenced

One scenic minor road across the common is unfenced, between cattle-grids, but the other two roads are for real—carrying A and B classifica-tions—and have austere iron-stake fencing which dates back to early last century. There is also a steam railway, running from Corfe to Swanage, with the result that these 315 acres are sub-divided into four blocks.

It remains an aspiration, we heard, to return the main tract to its medieval state. Heathland, open and unenclosed, is once again normal for Dorset. Ironically, this is being achieved by a renewal in effect of common rights for our times, by offering the cheapest of grazing to local farmers in order to achieve conservation imperatives.
 

Access to the coast
An article from Open Space Autumn 2006
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An article with this title, probably by Lawrence Chubb, appeared in our journal 70 years ago (July 1936). It is timely to reproduce it today as the government prepares a consultation paper on access to the coast in England.

We have called attention more than once to the danger which confronts the people of this island, of losing their freedom of access for recreation to a large proportion of their own coastline, owing to the rapid progress of building and other forms of development involving the enclosure of long stretches of the coast.

We repeat the warning now, because the imminence of the danger, and the extent to which it has become an actuality, do not seem even now to be sufficiently realised. The public have long taken for granted their right to walk on cliffs and coast generally and to take their pleasure there; but above high watermark this supposed right is on an extremely precarious basis, and except where it is possible to prove the existence of a public right of way or of rights of common there is, generally speaking, no legal obstacle to prevent owners of coastal lands from enclosing them and excluding the public whenever they please.

Where such lands have been acquired by the local authority for preservation, or have been bought by private subscription and vested in the National Trust, the possibility of enclosure has been forestalled; but much of the coast is still without any protection, and the society receives constant complaints of the exclusion of the public from tracts and cliff paths which have hitherto been freely open for general enjoyment.

Failing actual acquisition for the public, such lands can be protected from enclosure by means of planning schemes; but it seems that far too many authorities are allowing the chance of doing this to slip through their fingers. Inaction may be pennywise but it is certainly pound foolish; for if visitors to a seaside place find themselves suddenly cut off from their bathing coves and picnic grounds by private houses or hotels and their enclosures, they will go elsewhere.
 

Weaverham: a special place
An article from Open Space Autumn 2006
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Ruth Batsford, chairman of the Weaverham Trust in Cheshire, reports on their community project.

Weaverham, near Northwich, is a mid-Cheshire village special not only for its physical and social character but also for its community’s ability to affect future developments there. This has come about through the preparation, publication and adoption of a Weaverham village design and parish landscape statement (VD&PLS), and a parish plan.

It all began in 2001 when villagers learnt of proposals to develop the seven-acre Lakehouse Field in the heart of the village, which had been enjoyed for over 50 years as a playing-field and for community use.

Trust

The Weaverham (civic) Trust was formed and, with great assistance from the OSS, we applied to register the field as a village green. After three years and much deferring of decisions by Cheshire County Council, the field was registered on 29 March 2004 (OS summer 04 p9).

As a result of this teamwork, the inhabitants realised the value to them of the character of the village and its surrounding green belt. Helped by the Cheshire Landscape Trust, the parish council agreed that a parish plan and VD&PLS should be produced, by the council and the trust respectively.

We arranged several open days and about 70 people participated in a survey of the village. They took dozens of photos of the important features of the village, the grotty spots, the loved and hated aspects of the estates, treasured buildings, places where improvements were needed, etc.

I co-ordinated a team to edit the submissions, insert pictures and maps, and lay the documents before the parish council, which immediately approved them. We then sent them to Vale Royal Borough Council to ensure that they complied with the policies in the borough plan.

Adopted

The VD&PLS was adopted as supplementary planning guidance on 28 July 2005. It must now be considered when planning applications are submitted within our village, and it is material evidence in any planning application or inquiry there.

This exercise has brought home to us the importance of the village’s character, and that we have a say in how the community is developed and a duty to defend it against land-grabbers.

We believe that Weaverham parish was the first in the country to have in place all three documents: the village design statement, parish landscape statement and parish plan. We hope others will soon follow our example.



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