Agenda item

To consider the application for the addition of a Public Footpath between Meadow Lane and Dryhurst Lane in Disley.

The Committee considered a report which detailed an application made by Mr JP Bell on behalf of Disley Footpaths Society to amend the Definitive Map and Statement by adding a Public Footpath.

Under section 53 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, the Council had a duty, as surveying authority, to keep the Definitive Map and Statement under continuous review.  Section 53 (3) (c) allowed for an authority to act on the discovery of evidence that suggested that the Definitive Map needed to be amended.  The Authority must investigate and determine the evidence and decide whether to make a Definitive Map Modification Order or not.

One such event under section 53 (3)(c)(i) was where:

“(c)the discovery by the authority of evidence which (when considered with all other relevant evidence available to them) shows:-

(i) that a right of way which is not shown in the map and statement subsists or is reasonably alleged to subsist over land in the area to which the map relates, being a right of way such that the land over which the right subsists is a public path, a restricted byway or, subject to section 54A, a byway open to all traffic.”

The application had been submitted in July 2007 for the addition of a public footpath which provided pedestrian access between Meadow Lane and Dryhurst Lane in Disley.  The application was made on the basis of user evidence initially from five witnesses, with five further evidence forms being submitted.  Since 2007 three of the original witnesses had died, so a further four names were put forward as potential witnesses at the start of the consultation period in March 2019.

For public pedestrian rights to have come into being through long use, a twenty year period must be identified during which time use can be established. Where no challenges to the use had occurred, the period can be taken as twenty years immediately prior to the date of the application: in this case it would be 1987 to 2007.

The report before the Committee detailed the investigation carried out into the application and concluded that the user evidence submitted demonstrated regular, continuous and long term use of the claimed route.  Documentary evidence from Ordnance Survey Maps and Disley Parish Council minutes June 1989 to December 1992 supported the contention that the route had been available.  Use of the claimed route had been uninterrupted for the full twenty year period between 1987 and 2007 and had been without challenge, permission or secrecy.   

The Committee considered the user evidence submitted and the Definitive Map Officer’s conclusion and considered that there was sufficient user evidence to support the existence of footpath rights.  The Committee considered that, on the balance of probabilities, the requirements of Section 53(3)(c)(i) had been met and that the Definitive Map and Statement should be modified to add the claimed route as a Public Footpath.

The Committee unanimously

RESOLVED: That

1          an Order be made under Section 53(3)(c)(i) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to modify the Definitive Map and Statement by adding as a Public Footpath the route shown between points A-B on Plan No.WCA/020,

2          Public Notice of the making of the Order be given and, in the event of there being no objections within the specified period, or any objections received being withdrawn, the Order be confirmed in exercise of the power conferred on the Council by the said Act.

3          in the event of objections to the Order being received, Cheshire East Borough Council be responsible for the conduct of any hearing or public inquiry.