Richard Broadhead Head of Rights of Way and Countryside, Wiltshire Council

The Ramblers, Wiltshire and Swindon Area AGM 9 February 2019

Wiltshire Rights of Way and Countryside

3851 miles of Public Rights of Way in Wiltshire (CAIP, 2015)

• 2248 miles of Public Footpaths • 951 miles of Public Bridleways • 509 miles of Byways Open to All Traffic • 143 miles of Restricted Byways

Rights of Way

• Continuous review of the Definitive Map and Statement – DMMO’s and PPO’s

• Highway Records • New Town and Village Green applications • Maintenance and Enforcement • Access Land • Rights of Way Improvement Plan • Wiltshire and Swindon Local Access Forum

Access Land in Wiltshire

•There are approximately 26,000 hectares of Access Land in Wiltshire. The public right of access is on foot only unless landowners have chosen to dedicate additional rights. About 50% is excepted land on Salisbury Plain.

Wiltshire Council’s role is to help Natural England through provision of information and on-the-ground management of the access rights, working with NE and landowners.

Countryside & Partnerships• Management of the council’s Countryside Sites – from Barton Farm and

Southwick Country Park to Royal Wootton Bassett Mud Springs • Countryside Events – talks, walks and activities • Management of Trees on the council’s land ( but not Highway trees) • Host authority for the staff units of the North Wessex Downs and the

Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs AONBs and membership of the Partnerships and Management Working Groups

• Support for the Cotswolds Conservation Board (AONB) and New Forest National Park

• Support for the Wilts and Berks and the Kennet and Avon Canal Trusts • Marlborough Downs Nature Enhancement Partnership Board Member

2018 A Year of Surprises, Challenges and Opportunities

• Waste and Environment Directorate Changes - Restructuring of Service Areas and changes to Heads of Services

• The “Beast From The East” • Novichok • Legal Challenges, Public Inquiries and Hearings • Development pressures on public rights of way • Highways England A303 Expressway Amesbury to Berwick

Down scheme development • Traffic management on The Ridgeway National Trail in the

Avebury World Heritage Site

2018 continued, 2019 and beyond…• Team management – Rights of Way and Countryside,

Cranborne Chase AONB and North Wessex Downs AONB staff changes and structural reviews

• Re-energising the Wiltshire and Swindon Local Access Forum • Grovelands Way new Public Open Space, Warminster • Increase in numbers of formal complaints • Further financial savings • Service delegations and asset transfers • Brexit • The Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan • The effects of climate change • Time management and lack of sleep!

Questions received in advance of today• In view of apparent disregard of the RoW Dept’s opinion with

regard to the proposed closure of the Yarnbrook and White Horse railway crossings in North Bradley, what plans does the Dept have to ensure its advice is taken more seriously by Planning Committees?

• RoW initial view that bridge needed because existing underpasses too far apart (1km). Not supported by planning colleagues, Network Rail or Trowbridge Town Council. Decided to see if objections received to proposals to close the crossings. Objections from North Bradley Parish Council and The Ramblers. W Council now reviewing position so no final decision yet. RoW will be taking stronger position on council’s own policies; ROWIP, Core Strategy.

The number of DMMOs outstanding continues to stay at about 180, with approx. 6 being cleared up annually, and the same number being added to the list. How does Wiltshire Council propose to reduce the list to reasonable proportions?

Prior to 2005, the number of DMMO applications awaiting attention was around 40, so whilst not ideal, the backlog was manageable. The changes to the ability to claim BOATs over routes which had been used only by the public with non-mechanically propelled vehicles saw a rush of BOAT applications in an (abortive) attempt to beat the deadline; these were the main reason for the increase to 180 applications. Since then, the number of new applications each year has been low, and steady and include both historical and 25 year-use claims. However, most of the orders made are objected to, requiring public inquiries, so lots of work for us and perhaps 18 months to 2 years to final decisions by the Secretary of State. Also, the same officers have to process increasing numbers of PPO applications to enable approved development to commence. No extra money likely for officers unless we can establish new self-financing PPO posts, so for the moment the team restructure provides for increasing the number of fte. Definitive Map Officers to 3 plus a revised team management post, but at the expense of other “across the service” work. The effects will be monitored. NB: putting more opposed orders to the SoS will probably increase the log-jam there!

In view that Wiltshire Council is to receive additional funding to enable it to tackle mental health problems, and walking is a known health benefit in such matters, how much extra money will they provide for RoW maintenance and improvement?

• I wish I was able to answer this! In reality, it is highly likely that the extra money won’t meet the ever rising costs of social care, so the discussion is likely to be about how the council can best use what in real terms is a decreasing budget. In the ongoing need for the council to find year on year savings (£27million in 2019/20, and another £25 million in 2020/21we shall be doing well if we can hold on the budget we have now.

• Much of the money we receive for path improvements comes from grants applied for by community and volunteer groups or provided directly by the Community Area Boards where they see greater accessibility of rights of way as a local priority. Some are more “switched on” to this than others, we need help from groups such as The Ramblers to increase awareness.

• We also explore other external funding opportunities, a new example being a Network Rail grant scheme for nature conservation, to which we have submitted a bid for £90,000 across selected countryside sites, some of which will enable access improvements. We should be looking at all opportunities for walking, not just rights of way.

The 2008 Rights of Way Improvements Plan (ROWIP) committed to using Best Value Performance Indicator (BVPI) 178 as the measure of whether WC was adequately maintaining the network. At the outset, the BVPI indicator for Wiltshire was a shade under 70%. WC set itself the target of target of 80% by the year 2010/11. WC noted that, whilst BVPI 178 was no longer used nationally, it was going to continue to use it until a new national standard is agreed and implemented. Please provide a slide showing how BVPI 178 has evolved from 2008 to the present day. If BVPI has been replaced, please explain the substitute indicator and provide a slide showing how it has evolved since its introduction to the present day.

The 2010/11 target was achieved – just – 80.77%. My personal view is that with the resources we had then, and circumstances that will always be beyond our control, that was probably as good as it would ever get. We did intend to keep the surveys going but the volunteers who used to carry out the surveys to ensure they were independent both retired and we reluctantly concluded that we could not spare two of our own staff for what would amount to four months equivalent at critical times of the year to keep the surveys going when they were no longer a statutory requirement. Nationally, there has been no replacement indicator for Rights of Way, and our own staff resource and budget has been reduced in the need for austerity. Our service is now almost entirely reactive to issues reported to us, and we are only managing to resolve 40 – 50% of those. The indicators would not be as good now, but if anyone wants to volunteer to re-start them for us, it would be interesting to see the results.

If no metric is currently in use, please explain when such a metric was dropped, why it was dropped and how WC now acquires information of the funding needs to maintain the standard of the network and to meet its HA s130 duties to protect the rights of the walking public.

• Regrettably, we can only collect this information by monitoring the numbers and nature of the problems reported to us. The MyWiltshire App, email reports, etc. are collated to a spreadsheets, but they can only tell us what needs doing and be set against those that we have we have the capacity, in both staff numbers and budget, to resolve. The council is currently working with Microsoft and other consultants to transform our intelligence gathering and management, but that won’t be a quick process.

• However, while in an ideal world we would know the funding requirements and budget accordingly, we have to live in the real world where all services are under huge financial pressure and in competition, so the council has to prioritise according to the greatest needs of its residents. It’s a matter not of what we need to the job, but the standard to which we are able to provide it within the money that can be made available. In 35 years of working for several local authorities managing Rights of Way, it has always been that way, and now more so than ever.

Please explain the ROW maintenance program for 2019. What is the maintenance budget for each of the years 2015 to 2019?

We have to operate according to our means (Council’s cannot legally go bust). Rights of Way maintenance is now mostly reactive to demand, so although we are aware of many problems we want to fix (and doubtless unaware of many others we would also like to fix) it would be misleading to suggest that we maintain a defined maintenance programme. There were always problems with the ‘old’ parish maintenance programme because (a) it took up to seven years to complete the cycle and we used to hide behind it as a reason for not tackling reported problems if they were not in the parish programme for that year (forty parishes out of 260 annually) and (b) we were rarely where the complainants thought we should be.

Reactive maintenance does at least mean that we can be sure that we are addressing the problems that are affecting people’s use of the paths, even though we would like to be able to do a lot more of that.

Our Rights of WayMaintenance PrioritiesReactive maintenance, informally prioritised according to: •Public safety •Locally important paths •Promoted routes and other strategic paths •Other well used and ‘useful’ paths •Lesser paths –remote, little known or expected demand, limited purpose, eg. dead ends

What is the maintenance budget for each of the years 2015 to 2019?

Context; there are three elements to the maintenance budget.

•General maintenance to cover the cost of contractors and materials •Local Transport Plan allocation from Highways for the re-use of road planings to repair and improve byways and occasionally bridleways, rarely footpaths •Local Transport Plan allocation (via Highways) for minor path improvements (eg. where more than the basic maintenance requirement is desirable

Yearly breakdown from 2013-14

• 2013-14 £322,000 Pre-austerity • 2014-15 £316,000 Austerity hits – spending freeze from September to financial year end 31 March • 2015-16 £172,500 £43.5k savings required, no road planings • 2016-17 £210,000 Minor savings required, some planings

2017-18 £270,000 Savings required but all planings returned • 2018-19 £270,000 Standstill budget, no inflationary increase • 2019-20 £270,000 Expectation, to be confirmed

Does the council still operate a 3 tier approach to prioritizing maintenance? If not, what has superceded it? What is the maintenance regime applied to the lowest tier? How can we find out which tier each path is allocated to?

No, maintenance is now reactive, with priorities as at Slide 14

If you are still awake, thank you for listening

• Any further questions, please?