Missing bridge doesn’t mean right-of-way run-up disappears

The Byways & Bridleways Trust has welcomed a decision reversing the diversion of a public footpath in Northumberland, and believes that it will have a valuable effect on the usability of bridleway, and so of importance for mountain bikers as well as walkers.

In 2007, Northumberland County Council made an order to change a cluster of public rights of way at Hedgeley, Northumberland, including diverting ‘Footpath 1′ from where it currently crosses the River Breamish, which is notorious for running ‘high and fast’ at times. Anyone looking at this crossing point today would be excused for thinking that it is, and always has been, virtually impassable, with no proper ford, and steep banks.

But it was not always like this. When Footpath 1 went on to the definitive map and statement of public rights of way in the early 1950s, it crossed the river by means of a footbridge, which ‘disappeared’, allegedly in the 1980s. In its statutory notice accompanying the package of changes, Northumberland County Council said that Footpath 1 “will ford the River Breamish and is usable when river levels are low.”

Alan Kind, the editor of Byways & Bridleways, the journal of the Byways and Bridleways Trust, objected to the council’s proposal. Kind is a Newcastle-based walker and mountain bike rider. He said that the crucial test to be applied is that in section 119(6) of the Highways Act 1980: “… the diversion effected by the path or way will not be substantially less convenient to the public in consequence of the diversion.”

Kind said: “Wading through a river, when low enough to allow this, cannot be other than ‘substantially less convenient’ than a footbridge, and the absence of the bridge is just a ‘temporary circumstance’ that must be discounted.”

In her decision letter, the Secretary of State’s Independent Inspector, Mrs Sue Arnott said: “I conclude that I must make the comparisons between the relative convenience of existing and proposed routes on the basis that users are entitled to walk Footpath 1 crossing the river by a footbridge. The alternative route, via the new ford, cannot be other than substantially less convenient when, at best, it would mean crossing with wet feet.”

Mrs Arnott also disagreed with the council’s assertion that few people would walk Footpath 1 were the bridge to be reinstated.

The Trust welcomed this view and said it looks forward to the restoration of “this excellent, and too-long-unusable, public footpath. This decision will be influential on other councils proposing unsatisfactory river-crossing diversions of bridleways and footpaths.”

Kind said: “It is lawful to carry or push a mountain bike across a footbridge, but not many people would want to ride across – or wade across – the River Breamish with one. The knock on is that the principle applies to bridleway bridges, where riding bikes is lawful on the approaches; and to short footpaths to bridges, adjacent to fords, which is not uncommon.”