DEFRA

CONSULTATION RELATING TO THE AMENDMENT OF THE
LOCAL ACCESS FORUMS (ENGLAND) REGULATIONS 2002

RESPONSE FROM THE OPEN SPACES SOCIETY,
NOVEMBER 2005

Introduction
 

1.         The Open Spaces Society (formally the Commons, Open Spaces and Footpaths Preservation Society) was founded in 1865 and is Britain’s oldest conservation body. A registered charity, we campaign to create and conserve common land, town and village greens, open spaces and public paths in town and country throughout England and Wales. We have 2,500 members consisting of individuals, organisations and local authorities at all levels. A number of our members serve on the local access fora (LAFs) and others have experience of working with the LAFs.
 

1.         At a meeting of our local correspondents on 12 November, a motion was debated and carried with only one abstention. That motion was ‘Those attending the Open Spaces Society’s local correspondents’ training weekend agree that local access fora are a worrying cause for concern’. Our answers below are therefore without prejudice to our view that LAFs are of little value as the legislation is currently drafted, and that mere tweaking of the regulations, as is proposed here, will not make them worthwhile.
 

1.         Our local correspondents act as the society’s representatives in areas ranging from a unitary, district or borough council area to a whole county. They have a great deal of experience on issues relating to public rights of way and access. The concerns they expressed included the following.

• LAFs are purely advisory and their advice is generally ignored,
• the members are ignorant of their role and some are hostile to public access,
• the LAFs are too close to the local authorities which they are supposed to advise,
• they are reactive and do not set the agenda,
• they spend most of their time responding to government consultations,
• the local authority does not put sufficient resources or staff time into their administration 
   and operation.
 

Proposal 1: We invite views on whether the Regulations should be amended so that the deadline in those Regulations is removed, thereby ensuring that there is a continuing duty on appointing authorities to have a forum (or forums) which cover their area.
 

1.         We have no objection to the amendment, but it is futile if there are no sanctions against those authorities who decide not to set up fora (Milton Keynes for instance). Therefore the regulations should be amended to cover the procedure to be followed where the responsible authority has not set up a LAF

Proposal 2: We invite views on whether the Regulations should be amended to give appointing authorities the power to extend or reduce the area covered by a forum; combine forums with other forums; establish new forums; abolish forums; and/or, enter into or withdraw from joint arrangements.
 

Proposal 3: We invite views on whether an appointing authority, before making any of the changes referred to in Proposal 2, should be required to consult any other appointing authorities that the authority considers would be affected by the proposal. Similarly, the authority should be required to consult any existing forums that the authority considers would be affected.
 

Proposal 4: We invite views on whether the Regulations should be amended to give an appointing authority the power, when establishing a forum or entering into joint arrangements, to appoint members from amongst the membership of any
forum(s) previously established by that authority, without a requirement for vacancies to be advertised or for the appointing authority to consult.
 

Proposal 5: We invite views on whether the Regulations should require appointing authorities to notify the Countryside Agency whenever (a) a new forum secretary is appointed or their contact details change or (b) whenever they make the types of changes referred to in Proposal 2.
 

Proposal 6: We invite views on whether the Regulations should require an appointing authority to submit a copy of their forum’s annual report to the Countryside Agency.
 

Proposal 7: We invite views on whether the Regulations should be amended to reduce the minimum number of forum members from 10 to 8.
 

(A) whether to extend the list of bodies to whom it is the function of local access forums to provide advice, and if so, which bodies should be included and why.
 

(B) whether the Secretary of State should prescribe additional matters on which local access forums should provide advice, and if so, what these additional matters should be and why.
 

(C) whether any other amendments should be made to the Regulations, in order to improve the effectiveness, operation or administration of forums, and if so, what these should be and why;
 

1.         Our answers in paragraphs 10 and 11 above apply
 

1.         There also needs to be a clear procedure for expelling members who do not behave in accordance with the purpose of the forum, ie who by his or her actions clearly does not believe in the improvement of access for open-air recreation and enjoyment. A recent example is a member of the Oxfordshire LAF who is a land agent hired by a landowner to remove access land from the provisional map. He should have been expelled from the forum as soon as it was discovered that he was working against improving access but, despite protestations from LAF members, he was not..
 

(D) how the Secretary of State’s guidance to forums and local authorities should be revised;
 

(E) examples of good practice which can be used in developing guidance for forums and local authorities.
 

1.         We are not aware of any. However, Defra should assign responsibility for identifying and publicising examples of good practice and for making arrangements for assisting the chairmen, secretaries and members of the LAFs in their work