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Rights of Way: Maps

My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for tabling this question and bringing about an interesting debate, because it brings to our notice a good idea that has got bogged down. I have to declare an interest. We are farmers and in horticulture and we own and occupy land with rights of way. None are known to be lost ways, but we have been talking to Lincolnshire County Council about diverting a path to provide both a more practical field shape and a more engaging walk. My wife is a Lincolnshire county councillor and I have used her as a researcher. I have had the opportunity to talk to Chris Miller who is the principal rights of way and access officer on Lincolnshire County Council. He gave me some interesting information on how a typical county council is dealing with these things. Lincolnshire has a total of 159 cases, of which 138 are from direct applications from the public. Others were initiated by the county council following the discovery of evidence by the authority. The oldest of these cases date back to 1983. In 2007-08, the authority completed just 23 cases but received 10 new claims. The backlog is clearing only slowly. The process is slow and not working particularly well. Timescales for resolution vary depending on whether objections are received. As a rough estimate, it takes about a year for a case to be resolved. However, the authority has some old cases that have not significantly progressed for a number of years. It receives approximately 50 requests a year. Many people who make a request are put off by the fee or their request does not meet the statutory or local criteria for acceptance. The briefing, for which I am grateful to Chris Miller, paints a picture of a process that is not working well. That is not because the department is badly funded. Obviously, all local authority departments are finding things tight when they want to be generous with funds, but this department is relatively well funded. Lincolnshire is a rural county and has probably more than its fair share of rural footpaths. The picture that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has presented to us shows that the task is complex and burdensome. That is not likely to be resolved in the absence of primary legislation to simplify the process. However, knowing the Government’s position on legislative timetables, I think that it is unlikely that we will see any such legislation. I would be interested to know what the Minister proposes to do in the interim to make the project much less bureaucratic. Amanda Earnshaw, a project manager for the Discovering Lost Ways scheme, which was set up by Natural England, said: "““What should have been a sensible process has got itself mired in bureaucracy and as yet we haven’t got any more rights of way on the map””." The project found that even a systematic research approach could not remove the requirement for further detailed research into cases by the highway authority and for a public inquiry to be held whenever the recording of such a right was opposed. The costs of advertising are a factor, too. Local newspapers are not cheap places in which to advertise. The Government may need to find other ways of making details available to the public. As we know, Natural England has decided, given the budget pressures that it faces, that further funding cannot be justified after the £4.5 million that it has invested so far. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, referred to the stakeholder working group. The Government have said that they will not bring Section 53 into effect until they hear the outcome of the working group, so it would be useful to know from the Minister when he expects the group to report back to him. It was interesting to hear the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, talk about urban paths, because in many ways these are more used than rural paths. Rural paths are used largely, although not exclusively, for recreation purposes, but urban paths, too, are important in local communities. Often, what started with people nipping through a gap in the hedge has become a well tracked alleyway through to the shops and people have become used to it. The establishment of rights of way by precedent means that new paths are being created all the time in urban environments. I hope that the Minister will present us with some positive solutions to what I see as a difficult problem. No one can deny the delight of walking in the British countryside, which, at present, looks absolutely magnificent. Whether it is the Cumbrian hills or the Lincolnshire fens, we are all privileged to be able to enjoy it. I hope that the Minister will say that he supports the continuing development and maintenance of the definitive map. As the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said, we must approach that in a practical way.