I received this e-mail last night. Please feel free to comment or to e-mail me directly...
Dear Mr Lander Stow
You contacted us regarding an incident on a unmetalled County road that runs past Bouchland Farm Burrington where you were stopped by a resident from using the lane.
I contacted you earlier this year to say that the status of the lane as highway maintainable at public expense had been challenged by the owners of Bouchland farm and that I was arranging a meeting between the County Solicitor and their representatives.
The meeting was held last week and the outcome was that their legal representative reserved their rights to dispute the status of the lane the status of which could therefore only be proved in court.
As an authority I am not sure any such action would be of much benefit to the local tax payer given the low if not non-existent usage of the lane.
As a road I would have a great concern over vehicles and even people exiting onto the A377 and if we were to enforce the status it would probably be with downgrading or implementation of a traffic order to restrict the class of traffic that could use it on safety grounds. These were acknowledged in 1994 as you will be aware from the papers supplied by Nick Steenman-clarke.
The County Sol has recommended that we explore ways of allowing access for your group, which do not involve the options referred to above.
I have spoken to Mr Chapple the owner of Bouchland Farm who has expressed regrets over the way the original incident was handled. It appears that he was away at the time and the matter was dealt with by his neighbour who may have over reacted.
To this end I wondered if yourself or a member of the trail riders group would be prepared to meet with Mr Chapple and myself to discuss the access that would be required to allow you to enjoy usage of the lane. If this offer would be of interest please let me know what dates and times would be convenient and I will make the arrangements with Mr Chapple.
Paul Stewart For Area Engineer North
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I do know where I'm going, but the track it will decide, It's not the destination, It's the glory of the ride!
Devon have signed up to the scheme that provides recreational use of the countryside to all people, no matter of what colour, race or creed, and I presume that would include trail riders. I do not remember what the directive was called, somewhere in their" Rights of Way - access to the countryside, pages. Was also a load of stuff about opening up the countryside with better acccess for all users in the South Hams Council magazine recently.[Trail riders definitely not mentioned.. horses MTBers and ramblairs only I'm afraid] Please excuse my ramblings, but I do not think that" the road gets little use" as a suitable reason for not using our money to enforce it as a Right of Way!!!. When I have finished greasing the CRF's chain I will have a traul on the internet and see if I can find the Devon Commitment to act in a sensible fashon doc......
Acceess to the A### highway could be via a nice Triumphal Gateway... that would act as a "Psychological Barrier" to ramblairs...
.... There is a millionar in Somerset who would possibly sell one cheap!!!!!
I've had some info from Dave Tilbury the TRF RoW Officer...
Basically it's "Kill, Maim, Murder all those that oppose. Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated" (that's for the benefit of Cap'n Jean-Luc). So I'm off to get a copy of the Finance Act Map and we'll be going ahead with this as if we don't it may put some ideas into other Farmer's heads that we'll roll over easily!!!
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I do know where I'm going, but the track it will decide, It's not the destination, It's the glory of the ride!
