Norfolk Area Ramblers
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Ramblers Norfolk Area Newsletter & Walks Programme August - November 2018 http://www.norfolkra.org.uk/ AREA OFFICE: Our Area Secretary is Ken Hawkins, the address for area correspondence is 26 Hillfields, Dereham NR19 1UE. The phone number is 07505 426750 and the email address is [email protected] Path Problems in Norfolk, where sure of your details, can be reported directly to: Rights of Way Team, Planning & Transportation Dept, Norfolk County Council, County Hall, Martineau Lane, Norwich, NR1 2SG. (Telephone: 0344 800 8020.) You can also report them online via the map at http://maps.norfolk.gov.uk/highways/ - find the path, click on it, and follow the instructions. (If you need more information, go first to https://www.norfolk.gov.uk/out-and-about-in-norfolk/public-rights-of-way/about-public-rights-of-way - the map is at the bottom of the page. Where a member is unsure, or the problem is not clear, report the problem to Ian Mitchell, 5 Montcalm Road, Norwich, NR1 4HX. (Telephone: 01603 622539, email address: [email protected]) Ian would also like to know anything directly reported to the Rights of Way Team. Acting Area News Editor: Richard May, 24 Swanton Avenue, Dereham, NR19 2HJ. Telephone 01362 709044, email address is [email protected]. All Ramblers members are invited to take part in any walk in the Area programme. Non- members are welcome to participate and are invited to join the Ramblers if they so desire once they have sampled the variety of walks on offer. New members can join or existing members can update their details (change of group, change of name or address) by phoning Ramblers Central Office in London on 020 7339 8500 . You can also join on the Ramblers website: http://www.ramblers.org.uk. The next deadline for copy for the newsletter is 13th October 2018. The deadline for copy for the following newsletter will be 9th February 2019. The remaining Area Council meeting in 2018 will be 10th November at 10:00 at Honingham Village Hall. RAMBLERS CENTRAL OFFICE The address of the Ramblers’ Central Office is: 2nd Floor, Camelford House, 87—90 Albert Embankment, London SE1 7TW Tel: 020 7339 8500, Fax: 020 7339 8501 email [email protected] The Norfolk Area, Ramblers , is part of The Ramblers, a registered charity (number 1093577), and a company limited by guarantee (registration number 4458492) The Ramblers’ Norfolk Area Action required if you want to hear from us! Don’t forget to sign up for our email list, if you haven’t already. Go to the link below, give us your name and email address, and then you can sign up to whichever emails you want to receive. www.norfolkra.org.uk/MailListSignup Richard May Footpath Secretaries needed Norfolk Area of the Ramblers needs some more Footpath Secretaries in or- der to spread the work of looking after public paths, and also for succession purposes. How good is your map reading? Can you read a planning application which does not mention a path which should be crossing the site? Can you write to explain why a path will need to be changed if there is a plan to build houses on a certain site? Can you write to explain why you think that the course of a path should not be changed? Can you object to a path order where the width is not what it should be? What should it be? Learn the answers to the last two questions from the Blue Book on Rights of Way law, which you will be supplied with if you become a Footpath Secre- tary. Some of the previous questions you will have a feel for already but may need some tuition and practice. If interested contact Ian Mitchell via the means shown in the middle of the front page. Ian Mitchell 2 Newsletter & Walks Programme August to November 2018 Rights of Way Sub-committee- What happens? The officers, group representatives and interested parties attend three meetings a year, which are our area council meetings for Norfolk Area Ramblers. We also have a rights of way sub-committee which meets a similar number of times a year to discuss matters of importance to the paths network. This sub-committee met last week, and in a bid to help explain what goes on, and the importance of the committee, we’ve (many thanks to Ken, the area secretary) put together a short summary of what took place. For anyone who is interested in this type of work, do let us know, we need help in numerous areas such as footpath officers, assistance with 2026 and help monitoring planning applications. At the meeting, representatives from across the county considered a range of issues, the following amongst them. 1 – Big Pathwatch: the Big Pathwatch app is still active, though now used only by a small number of people – only 200 adverse reports were received in the last 18 month, many from just a couple of individuals (who are not identifiable to us). Reports of the problems are sent on to Norfolk County Council (NCC), but we are not clear about the extent to which they are used. We have asked Central Office about their use of the data, and are told that they were working on getting the information live on the website to show the different problems that are being reported across the country. It was noted that this was separate to the Big Pathwatch report which was carried out in a systematic way to show the condition of the footpath network at one point in time. We are planning to add path names to the reports we receive to see what use we can make of them. Our main concern is that, as we are unsure of the use to which NCC puts the reports, we continue to urge everyone encountering an issue to report it directly to NCC, ideally through the online reporting system, which has been improved recently. 2 – Norfolk Local Access Forum: two of our members (Ken Hawkins and Vic Cocker) are also members of the LAF. Ken, who chairs the LAF Public Rights of Way Subgroup, reported to the Subcommittee on a number of issues being taken to the next LAF meeting in July: 3 The Ramblers’ Norfolk Area (i) – agreement to put a proposal to get NCC Departments (and later others) to formulate a vision of Norfolk as a quality destination for walkers and others, using the tourism and health (including the financial side) benefits, including better co-ordinated use of volunteers (via proposed parish seminars), all based on the Norfolk Access Improvement Plan (currently going through the final stages of approval) (ii) – NCC concerns about how it manages roll back of the England Coast Path where there is rapid erosion – NCC is seeking guidance from Natural England on methodology (iii) – Parish Council seminars to bring together all volunteers and work for public rights of way; the first is planned for October 3 – Actual and proposed changes to the public rights of way network: the Subcommittee reviewed a number of changes, where necessary agreeing the response to be made by The Ramblers. This work depends heavily on the activity of Ian Mitchell, our Footpath Co-ordinator, in maintaining awareness of what is happening, making visits where needed, and presenting the relevant information to the subcommittee for comment. 4 – Restoring the record: Ian also reported on his involvement with the national Ramblers ‘2026’ work, under the title Don’t Lose You Way. He continues to attend a Volunteer Board meeting, roughly every two months. 5 – England Coast Path: responses to the consultation on the route from Weybourne to Hunstanton were noted; both we and NCC were concerned particularly about (1) access to the salt marsh areas in a number of places where Natural England proposed to restrict or ban access, (2) the derisory sum offered for the establishment of the route and (3) the proposal to route the path alongside the A149 near Titchwell. Julian White, reproduced from the Norfolk Area Ramblers Blog blog.norfolkra.orrg.uk 4 Newsletter & Walks Programme August to November 2018 Work Party Volunteers We are now starting on projects replacing Boardwalks and new boardwalks And for clearing blocked footpaths We are always looking for volunteers Contact peter on 07905565750 [email protected] Path Changes Postwick FP2 With the near completion of the NDR (renamed Broadland Northway if it will stick), Postwick Footpath 2 which comes south from Smee Lane is officially diverted when it is close to one of the new rounda- bouts onto a footway beside the new road southward to the next rounda- bout, where it ends. From this point footways or cycleways can be followed by bridge across the A47 to a complex traffic light junction. Here the op- tions appear to be a footway/cycleway eastward then taking a lane into Postwick, or a footway/cycleway northwest back across the A47 via another bridge. Buxton FP12, FP13, FP14 Broadland District Council recently dedicated Footpath 12 through some amenity woodland it owns off Back Lane, Buxton with 2 short arms to local housing roads Woodland Walk and Bulwer Road. Broome FP7 The entry for Broome Footpath 7 off Yarmouth Road is likely to be altered to the southwest because some houses are going to be put on the land where it starts at present. Seething FP12 The entry for Seething Footpath 12 off Seething Street is like- ly to be altered because houses are to be erected along this part of the Street, so that the path will go down the edge of the first garden to reach the field behind and then take a slightly different angle across the field to its present exit.