Fighting for footpaths

Cllrs Oldrieve and Hubbard put a motion to February's council meeting calling on WC to do more to look after the county's decaying footpath network.

For the background see the recent article on this website.

They said:

Our county is fortunate to have a significant network of historic and useful footways and right-of-way. This network provides a wonderful opportunity to support the council's key objectives for individual wellbeing, and it provides an economic benefit to the county for tourists to walk our unique landscapes. It is to be regretted that over the life of this council the quality and access of those rights of way has significantly reduced due to the poor upkeep and lack of sufficient budget to meet residents' expectations for maintenance. Voluntary groups have been stymied of designated funding due to the freeze on spending caused by the financial crisis at Wiltshire Council restricting the amount of work that they are able to undertake. The statutory requirement of landowners to maintain rights-of-way has not been robustly enforced by the council.

In their motion they called for:

£36,000 of the designated fund for maintaining rights of way to be delegated down to Area Boards, and for Area Boards work with voluntary rights of way groups, walking groups and Parish and Town Councils to identify the needs within their local community.

And that the administration enables the council's enforcement teams to fulfill their obligation to protect the rights-of-ways for Wiltshire's residents.

In its response to the motion the council is dismissive, saying there's no money to do anything and Area Boards can use their budget for footpath maintenance if they want to.

The motion was rejected.