Landowners

From GPG

Landowners play a key role in the delivery of an accessible rights of way network. Building good relationships with landowners either directly or though the NFU or CLA can benefit both sides and reduce misunderstandings and conflict.

Cross compliance has an impact on the relationship between landowners and rights of way staff. As yet there is little evidence that much has changed.

Leicestershire County Council have looked at how cross compliance will affect delivery of the ROWIP.

A paper published (by Craig Mulder, Simon Shibli & Jo Hale) analyses the issues relating to the supply of Public Rights of Way from the perspective of farmers and landowners in England. Although government guidance for Local Authorities states that the interests of landowners should be taken into account during the preparation of Rights of Way Improvement Plans, there is little information in the public domain concerning the attitudes of, and issues affecting, potential suppliers.

The paper identifies the issues of concern to suppliers and how these affect access to the countryside. The methodology employed was a combination of desk research, qualitative research and a postal survey of farmers within the study areas.

Key findings include :

• Respondents were just as likely to prefer to exclude the public from their land as they were to allow access on the proviso of responsible behaviour.
• The idea that landowners would be happy to provide increased access on their land given sufficient financial incentive was found to be unproven.
• A minority of landowners provide informal access to their land for certain user groups.
• The fact that landowners are happier to provide permissive access than new Rights of Way suggests that they prefer to be able to keep a measure of control over access to their land.
• Respondents displayed a lack of confidence in current Rights of Way procedures and suggested that it would be better to concentrate on creating usable networks than simply recording historic Rights of Way.
• There was concern that increased access would result in increased costs and workloads for landowners.

Whilst there are legal measures available to forcibly maintain and increase the access resource if necessary, the most desirable solution is for landowners to welcome access to their land. However, it is clear that there are a number of real concerns that need to be addressed in order for this to be the case and these issues cannot be solved simply by financial means.

Landowner surveys

Several authorities have carried out major surveys of landowners and managers as part of their ROWIP consultation.

Hampshire carried out a full countywide landowner survey sending out questionnaires to all landowners (with assistance from the CLA & NFU). This was a big undertaking and cost in the region of £3,000 however the authority believe understanding the needs and concerns of landowners, and building good relationships with them is an essential part of improving the network. Hampshire's questionnaire can be downloaded.

Peterborough also carried out a landowner survey - their questionnaire can be downloaded.