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Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

However, it points out that Natural England, which will bring all this in, disagrees with the automatic exception of parks on the coast. It believes that not allowing it the flexibility to align the route along larger and more extensive parks and gardens would result in lengthy inland diversions. Reference has been made to how successful the south-west coastal path is. Yet, according to Devon County Council, after more than 30 years of negotiation the path has nine major gaps covering a combined distance of 12 kilometres. There is no doubt that those gaps reduce the number of people going along it, and result in large diversions. The Ramblers’ Association provides information on particular instances on the Solent Way and the south-west coastal path where they are diverted a considerable distance inland. By any sensible estimate of the situation, they really ought to be going along the coast. Because the parks go right up to the coast, and they will not allow access along there, it cannot be done. Under these circumstances, the new English coastal route will not be as successful as it ought to be, and Natural England ought to have the power to put the coastal route between the particular park concerned and the beach in the most sensible way. Finally, the Ramblers’ Association provides a number of examples where this has happened successfully, which would not be allowed under CROW legislation but currently works by agreement with the landowners. Sometimes you can get agreement and sometimes you cannot. My amendment would exclude parks from the list of exceptions in the CROW schedule. I am not suggesting that simply excluding is necessarily the right way to do it. There may be more sophisticated and flexible methods. However, the principle is that a large park ought not to be treated any differently from a farm where a farmer would be in exactly the same position as the person who owns the park.