Monday 15th NCC told my adviser that the Pockthorpe inquiry would be taking place within the next eleven months and to let them know if there were any dates that he couldn’t make! They haven’t even notified us! So I suppose we are expected to keep our lives ‘on hold’ indefinitely. After five years…..what’s another one anyway! Tuesday 16th Pockthorpe Lane is finally ‘on the agenda’ of the Parish Council. As ‘the horse has already bolted’ I will not be…
Where Public Rights of Way are concerned it is annoying and depressing that Individuals, who of course defend their own right to object to a claim on their private property, are usually the ones to suffer attack from all sides, seen as anti everything and labelled as vexatious trouble makers. In contrast, those individuals and pressure groups proportedly fighting for people’s rights are respected and given honours. They celebrate ‘victories’ whilst promoting conflict. Why isn’t the plain truth of the…
Monday 8th I have an issue with highway verges at the moment and decide to ask a few questions. Mainly,”why hasn’t my previous enquiry of one year ago, been dealt with? Email from the highway engineer, they muddled two different enquiries! Highway engineer sends me a few maps but still doesn’t answer the question. Tuesday 9th I get a couple of emails from customer services who seem to be passing them forwards and backwards to different people, eventually ending back…
QUOTE “If nothing else, it is entirely wrong that landowners are forced to expend vast sums of money defending their property against claims of rights of way. A CLA member, whose defence of a right of way claim cost £500,000 after a15 year battle writes: “We have had to sell most of the family farm, which we have owned since 1948 to pay the huge legal fees, whilst members of the public have their claims upheld whilst costing them nothing,…
Monday 1st Sometimes Monday’s are depressing! I am retired and a pensioner and like others in my position feel isolated, helpless and unheard. I am up against County Councils and campaigning, organised, well funded organisations, who have access to great media coverage for their ‘cause’ and more worryingly appear able to manipulate law and truth to their advantage. What chance do I and others like me have of our voices being even heard let alone our own human rights even…
A farmer with SEVEN bridleways claimed across his land is forced to live with the threat of extinction. His main fear is that, as there is a backlog of over 330 Applications in Somerset’s Rights of Way section, the matter will not be determined in his lifetime and will be a burden on his son. The Cost of Seven Inquiries will be financially crippling, given that even if he is successful in defeating any of the claims, none of his Costs are recoverable….
Monday 24th An interesting exchange of ideas about the definition of ‘street’. “The normal term in OE for a paved way or Roman road, later extended to other roads, urban streets, and in SE dialects to a street of dwellings, a straggling village or hamlet” [Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names]. Originally of Roman roads (Watling Street, Icknield Street). “In the Middle Ages, a road or way was merely a direction in which people rode or went, the name street being reserved for the made road” [Weekley]….
Lately there has been a huge increase in claims by access groups all wanting a ‘bite of the cherry’. Trouble is they have difficulty in agreeing with each other! Ramblers protect the ‘rights’ of walkers, The British Horse Society think that horse riders should take precedence Cyclists demand that they should be catered for, motorbike riders think they are hard done by and 4×4 off-roaders want more Byways Open to All Traffic. They are all focused on claiming FOOTPATHS! Ramblers…
I am obliged to deal with a lot of hostility when defending my right to object to a Public Right of Way being claimed to go through my garden. I often wonder why it is that the same people, who criticise me, see absolutely no parallel with others who take great objection to the grass verges outside their boundary fences being driven over by vehicles trying to pass in a narrow lane. The verges of roads are part of ‘the…
Sunday 16th News of another case lost. A process which takes an indefinite number of years and ruins lives and livelihoods. It will be appealed and fought of course but one has to ask at what cost and I am not referring to money! Monday 17th Comment from a colleague “ ……… without a bottomless pit of cash it’s hard to win.” Tuesday 18th Deafened by the sound of silence from Norfolk County Council. Wednesday 19th There is now not one…