On 17/08/2015 21:43, Rob Nickerson wrote:
... In regards to designation=*, are we now the only country that
makes a distinction between paths you have a legal right to walk on
and any other path that might exist because people happen to walk over
the land thus leaving a "desire line" path?
Hi Rob,
Apologies if I've grossly misunderstood here - I suspect I may have -
but things in England and Wales* that aren't
"designation=public_footpath"*** etc. aren't necessarily "desire
lines". There are a couple of other examples of "foot=yes":
1) Across Countryside and Rights of Way Act "access land". I map paths
across here as "foot=yes" because you do have a right of way - it's more
than just permissive access (the landowner can't just say no - the CROW
act gives them a number of reasons to temporarily close the land (e.g.
grouse shooting I believe) but it's still "=yes".
2) Historic undocumented access rights, often in cities but also
elsewhere. This could be something that everyone uses as a footpath,
but has never officially been listed as one.
That's not counting permissive access, such as a multi-use trail created
by a council, or a route over which access has been negotiated with a
landowner by e.g. Sustrans, or the desire lines you mention across land
where it's clear access is permitted by the landowner (possibly
indicated by a sign).
I'm not aware of another country with a similar scheme to England and
Wales (Scotland** for example has a more Scandinavian-style system of an
assumption of a right of access, with caveats). This suggests to me
that rendering designation doesn't really make a lot of sense outside of
England and Wales.
Cheers,
Andy
* Unfortunately I don't have any first-hand knowledge about the
situation in Northern Ireland, but this is the GB list so I presume
we're just talking about GB anyway.
** See e.g. http://www.outdooraccess-scotland.com/The-Act-and-the-Code/Legal
*** I've only talked about "foot" and "footpath" here for simplicity.
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