Ensuring these routes remain accessible and safe fulfils legal responsibilities and promotes good relations with both the public and local authorities.
To find out more about rights of way on your land, contact your local authority (national park authorities, county councils, some district councils, metropolitan boroughs or unitary authorities) who is typically responsible for maintaining a ‘definitive map’ for your area.
Definitive maps serves as the official legal reference for public rights of way in four categories.
- Footpaths
- Bridleways
- Restricted byways
- Byways open to all traffic
Key responsibilities
- Keep Paths Clear: Ensure public rights of way are free from obstructions like padlocked gates, barbed wire, walls, or overgrown vegetation bearing in mind the different clearances needed for users of different types of route, for example by horse riders. Obstructing a public right of way is a criminal offence.
- Maintain Visibility: Paths should be clearly visible and marked. If official waymarking is unclear, you may add informal waymarks to guide users as long as these are not misleading.
- Field-edge and Cross-field Paths: You must not cultivate footpaths or bridleways that follow a field edge. If you must cultivate a cross-field path, ensure it remains apparent and is restored to its minimum width within the specified timeframes.
- Structures for Access: Maintain gates or stiles to ensure they are safe, accessible and reasonably easy to use for public use.
- Livestock Management: Be mindful of livestock on land crossed by public rights of way. Certain animals are banned from these areas to ensure the safety of path users. An example of this includes bulls of recognised breeds over the age of 10 months.
- Spraying and Chemicals: When spraying chemicals on land with public rights of way, use approved products and follow the instructions carefully to avoid endangering users. Inform the public of any potential hazards.
Cultivation, Crops, and Public Rights of Way: Keep public rights of way open and available after ploughing, cultivation, and cropping.
- Before Ploughing/Cultivation:
- Ensure your tractor driver or contractor knows where paths are and how to deal with them.
- Field-edge rights of way must not be ploughed or cultivated.
- Avoid cultivating cross-field footpaths and bridleways if you can reasonably do so.
- Cross-field byways open to all traffic and restricted byways must not be cultivated.
- After Ploughing/Cultivation:
- Within 14 days, the path must have a firm, level surface and be marked on the ground to at least the minimum width.
- It is good practice to re-establish rights of way before leaving the field, using tractor wheels to define the minimum width.
- Further Ploughing/Cultivation:
- If further cultivation is necessary after the expiry of the 14-day period, the path must be reinstated within 24 hours. This is best achieved before leaving the field by marking the path using, for example, tractor wheels.
- During the Growing Season (for crops other than grass):
- As the crop grows, the path must remain evident on the ground.
- Before the crop reaches a height of 150mm (6”), the crop should be removed from the path.
- The path should remain clear of the crop to its minimum legal width, including where the crop encroaches from the sides as it grows.
- Tall Crops:
- To prevent obstruction to the minimum width, tall crops such as oilseed rape or maize may need additional clearance during the growing season. A practical solution is to clear extra width, equal to the anticipated height of the crop.
Reinstated paths
When ploughing, cultivating, or sowing crops in a field, farmers and land managers are legally required to reinstate any public right of way that crosses the land. This must be done within the set timescales ensuring the path is restored to either its recorded legal width or the minimum statutory width. If a path is not reinstated within the set timescales then the local authority has the option to use enforcement/prosecution powers to ensure it is restored.
Hedgerows and Buffer Strips
Farmers and land managers should also consider how their responsibilities for public rights of way may overlap/interact with Hedgerow Management Rules, particularly in relation to both cutting/trimming and buffer strips.
For example:
Cutting or trimming is permitted from 1 March to 31 August in the following situations:
(from https://www.gov.uk/guidance/hedgerow-management-rules-cutting-and-trimming#exemptions-from-the-rules)
You do not need to notify the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) to ask for the exemptions listed. You must keep a record of all works that you carry out under an exemption. If you are visited by the RPA you must be able to prove how and why you relied on the exemption.
Public and private rights of way
The hedgerow overhangs a highway, road or footpath over which there is a public or private right of way and the overhanging hedgerow:
- obstructs the passage of users
- is a danger to users
The hedgerow:
- obstructs the view of such users
- obstructs the light from a public lamp
The hedgerow is dead, diseased, damaged or insecurely rooted. And because of its condition, it or part of it, is likely to cause danger by falling on to a highway, road or footpath.
For more detailed information, visit the GOV.UK website and the Countryside Code for land managers.
For further advice and support, contact the Farming Advice Service (FAS) technical advice line at 03000 200 301 or email advice@farmingadviceservice.org.uk.