Battle over footpaths

TOWN Hall traffic chiefs at Warrington are being asked to settle an argument – over disputed footpaths running through farmland.
Members of the borough council’s traffic committee will tomorrow be asked to decide whether the alleged footpaths – running over land to the north of Culcheth Hall Drive and Withington Avenue, Culcheth – are legitimate footpaths.
The council has received applications for three claimed footpaths to be added to the definitive footpaths map.
If the applicants can prove the paths have been used uninterrupted and unchallenged for more 20 years, the council can add them to the map – making them official paths over which the public has a right of way.
Landowners and tenants can object, however.
The first application relates to a path which runs from a point on existing Culcheth and Glazebury footpath No 115, north east of the Culcheth Hall Farm Barns development, east south easterly, then north, north westerly, then westerly, to footpath No 122 at the northern end of Wellfield Wood.
Application No 2 runs from footpath No 115 where it leaves the access drive to Culcheth Hall Farm Barns in an easterly, then north, north easterly, then westerly direction, to footpath No 126, near the south western corner of HItchfield Wood.
The third application runs from a point near the northern end of Wellfield Wood, south, south westerly, then southerly through the wood and then easterly to the rear of Culcheth Hall Drive to a point to the rear of No 12 Culcheth Hall Farm Barns.
A report to the committee says the applications have been received as a result of a tenant farmer ploughing out cart tracks which form part of the claimed routes and obstructing other parts with a vehicle barrier or stacked tree roots and branches.
Twenty four people have submitted evidence claiming to have used the paths for more than 20 years and to be unaware of any attempt to challenge their use. They claimed to have used them for dog walking and leisure walking.
But the landowner and tenant farmer, farm workers and members of the Risley Shooting Syndicate claim to have turned away trespassers on many occasions, to have erected fencing and gates and to have planted crops which would have made it impossible to walk the paths.
Photographs of signs stating that some of the routes were private have been submitted as evidence.
The report to the committee indicates there is sufficient evidence to show that a public right of way exists on parts of two of the disputed routes but not on the third.
Councillors will be recommended to amend the definitive rights of way map by adding two sections of footpath on the first and third applications – but not the second application.
If their decision is challenged, it may be necessary to hold a public inquiry.