East Sussex Footpath Secretary's Report

1. Local Footpath Secretaries

There are no changes to the last reported list of volunteers, and the list of vacant parishes remains the same. However, I hope that the Training Day will find us some new recruits as I have opened the participation to interested parties as well as existing LFPS’s.

The lists of vacant and over-stretched parishes is as follows:

Vacant Parishes

  1. Ashburnham
  2. Buxted
  3. Danehill
  4. East Hoathly
  5. Firle
  6. Hadlow Down
  7. Penhurst

Multi or remotely-monitored Parishes

  1. Beckley
  2. Camber
  3. East Guldeford
  4. Etchingham
  5. Ewhurst
  6. Hurst Green
  7. Iden
  8. Newhaven
  9. Northiam
  10. Peasmarsh
  11. Piddinghoe
  12. Playden
  13. Rodmell
  14. Rye
  15. Rye Foreign
  16. South Heighton
  17. South Malling Without
  18. Southease
  19. Tarring Neville

The annual LFPS meeting on 26th April was held in Chiddingly Village Hall, which was judged to be a satisfactory venue, so we shall probably use it again next year. The walk beforehand was ably led by Murray Figgins, who also demonstrated his shepherding skills when he tried to revive a fallen sheep, and then went out of our way to report the problem to a local farmer. The refreshments provided by the Six Bells were also appreciated. Our guest speakers were Vicky Lawrence and Matt Harper from ESCC, and although the funding news was as bad as ever, Vicky’s ‘can do’ approach was refreshing after many years of negative management. She admitted many of their shortcomings and promised that steps were being taken to address at least some of them, by introducing new staff structures and IT systems.

The Training Day will be held on 17th November, at the Bentley Wildfowl Centre south of Uckfield. I have sent out the agenda and instructions to all interested parties, and as food will be provided, have asked for confirmation of attendance by 31st October. I shall send out a further reminder shortly before then, Royal Mail permitting. Eugene Suggett will be coming from Central Office, and so far Chris Tweed, the volunteer Liaison Officer from ESCC has offered his services too. The format will be similar to the West Sussex event held back in January.

A combination of the LFPS Job Descriptions for East & West Sussex has been prepared and will be presented at the Training Day. I also hope to have copies ready for the AC meeting.

2. East Sussex County Council RoW Department

Our liaison meeting with the RoW department on 11th October was cancelled by Vicky Lawrence at short notice following the issuing of seven Section 130 notices by Chris Smith for a number of long-standing problems in Arlington & Hellingly. At the time of writing, Vicky has requested a meeting between our Area Chairman & Rupert Clubb, the new Director of Transport and Environment at ESCC. We shall doubtless have more news at AC in November.

One issue I had hoped to resolve at the liaison meeting was ESCC’s latest interpretation of the OS copyright rules for Definitive Map extracts. Back in July an edict came from Legal Services saying that copies could no longer be issued to volunteers for fear of copyright infringement. With the help of Central Office I had hoped to put them straight on this, but they have now reverted to the first opinion. Fortunately we are currently up to date with map copies, but if new volunteers emerge, we may have problems. In the meantime, I would ask anyone with DM extracts to look after them and be prepared to pass them on as and when they retire or relinquish parishes to others.

4. East Sussex Local Access Forum

I attended the Defra-hosted consultation on Coastal Access in Peterborough and was disappointed by the poor representation by other LAF members who were not local government officers. This was echoed by a subsequent Extraordinary Meeting of the East Sussex LAF shortly afterward, to discuss our response to the Coastal Access consultation document. This was a little overburdened with land interest members and I had difficulty making my case. However, following some negotiations and some expert diplomacy by the chairman, agreement was reached.

One very important item that was included in the RoWIP following consultation on the draft was the linking of the Cuckoo Trail at Heathfield with the Forest Way at Groombridge. Although neither of these routes are public rights of way and they are part of National Cycle Route 21, they are heavily used by walkers and provide very useful off-road links between dozens of paths. As many of you may know, the ‘missing link’ is the disused railway north of Heathfield, parts of which were sold off to private landowners, and a section used for the Mayfield bypass. However, it still remains the only route that would be walker-friendly throughout. Early in October I read in the local newspaper that a consultation (by private firm Atkins) has been in process since 2005, to decide between four possible routes. The resulting document has been open to public consultation, with a closing deadline on 9th October. Unfortunately as this process had no legal structure, it seems that the usual user-interest groups (e.g. the RA or BHS) were not informed and so missed the deadline. It seems that the majority of consultees are local landowners, who have formed a lobby group to fight the adoption of the old railway as the preferred route. I have written to Cllr Matthew Lock requesting that the consultation period be extended by a short period to give us time to read the documents and make comment accordingly.

I missed the most recent LAF meeting as I was on holiday, but Minutes and other documents resulting from the LAF are available from me on request.

5. Byway abuse

Abuse of Byway 81 in Warbleton continues, despite a request for a voluntary cessation of use by LARA, the respectable face of off-road vehicle users. ESCC’s plan for a seasonal Traffic Regulation Order will not help as the route is in such a poor state that even a long dry summer will not help it to recover if abuse continues.

6. Wealdway problems

Still in place.

7. Brede High Wood

After some discussion between Area and Central Office, the conditions placed upon our pledge by the latter were such that the Woodland Trust had to refuse it. However, they have achieved their target anyway and so the woods will be protected in perpetuity. The Woodland Trust passes on its thatnks for those individual donations that it received from RA members and Groups.

For your interest, Central Office wanted the woods to be dedicated as Access Land, and for various reasons (mainly cost) the Trust is unable to do this. However, they have no plans to have any restrictions on access to the woods.

8. Bexhill-Hastings Link Road.

No further news.

9. Glyndebourne Turbine

A public inquiry is to be held in February. The South Downs Society & CPRE are co-ordinating their case against it.

10. Other news.

In October I was invited for a walk by campaigns Officer Des Garrahan, in company with Tom Franklyn, the RA’s new Chief Executive. The deal was that I organised a route in East Sussex, with a few problems if that was possible (ha ha), and Des would pay for lunch. You will have read of Tom’s background by now, so I was interested to discuss the issue of urban paths with him. Hastings LFPS Mike Riley has been asked to help in setting up cross-town walking routes by Hastings BC so we were keen to hear Tom’s opinion. Tom is also interested in finding out how footpath volunteers work, and finding a few ‘everyday footpath problems in East Sussex’ was not much of a challenge. He was impressed by the High Weald scenery and full of ideas on how the RA can encourage more people to join, and more members to volunteer. I wish him all the best in his new job.

Lastly, please don’t forget that the ‘Use Your Paths Challenge’ has been extended to the end of the year, and there are still large patches of empty grid squares in East Sussex, especially in the High Weald area around Burwash. You have two months!

Malcolm McDonnell