There are 70 public bridleways and public footpaths in Tatham parish, with a total length of around 45 miles. They are defined by a map (the “Definitive Map”) held and kept up-to-date by the Highway Authority, Lancashire County Council. Landowners are legally responsible for the upkeep of Public Rights of Way (PRoWs), but in practice the maintenance work is nowadays usually carried out by the Highway Authority.
Each of our 70 PRoWs crosses several field boundaries, and many cross sizeable watercourses. Those 45 miles add up to many hundreds of stiles, gates, bridges and steps, many of which are in poor repair, or have already disintegrated.
Parish councils do have the power, under the Highways Act 1980, to repair and maintain public footpaths and bridleways, but footpath work is expensive, especially if carried out by contractors, so many parish councils (PCs) prefer – in the interests of keeping down Council Tax – to report problems to the Highway Authority and wait for it to act.
However, due to cuts in local authority funding, budgets for footpath maintenance have been slashed, and the backlog of work has grown. So in recent years the County Council has run a Parish Council Local Delivery Scheme (LDS), which enables it in effect to delegate some of its PRoW responsibilities to PCs (Lancashire has 219 civil parishes, though not all are in the LDS) who each receive £500 a year, plus some footpath maintenance materials, such as stiles, kissing gates, waymarks and fingerposts, subject to availability. The LDS respects the right of parishes to decide their own PRoW maintenance priorities, but £500 does not buy much material, let alone labour, so Tatham now runs a Footpath Volunteer Scheme, consisting in 2023 of over a dozen parish residents. New volunteers are always welcome!
The PC maintains a digital map (extract below) showing the PRoWs, reported maintenance issues, and issues resolved since the Parish Council joined the LDS in late 2020. Click here to see the full map. You can zoom in, choose which layers to view (PRoWs, outstanding issues, issues resolved) and click on individual issues for details.
If you know of any issues not shown on the map, please contact the parish council.
Major problems such as missing or dangerous footbridges can also be reported from the site directly to Lancashire County Council, using the Love Clean Streets smartphone app, which automatically adds the exact location to your report and allows you to attach photos. Of course you can also use the app to report problems outside Tatham to LCC.