The Battle for Broxhead Common
no gate so why the rails
The Case for Hampshire County Council – PART 110
- The workmen putting up the fence were of course just following orders, so I immediately wrote to the Senior Rights of way Officer in Hampshire County Council. Surely he was not condoning and helping this change of the definitive description without publishing the intention?
- Most of the Rights of Way Officers in Hampshire County Council knew me by now because I had first been a volunteer for the Headley & District Bridleways Group, then the British Horse Society. Their aim was and still is to try and get more off-road routes for horses because the traffic was getting, faster, larger, and more numerous by the day.
BW4 email dated 8th November 2007 to Rob Thompson re enclosure of headland path - Horses have been short-changed as far as bridleways go because the single-track country lanes were once their bridleways, but these were tarmaced during the first world war for ease of troop movements. Since then, they have since been consumed by motor vehicles complete with 60 mph speed limit on them, with no replacements offered!
- I also became a Parish Councillor for Kingsley and their Chairman for eight of the fifteen years, and lastly a District Councillor. I naively thought the latter might be of help to my voluntary work which in some respects it was.
- I received a prompt reply to my email which said he had been working with the Landowner and had known about their intentions. As there would be no obstructions, he thought it must be acceptable, and as for the definitive map, he would check the alignment!
- Checking the Definitive Map alignment for a fence that hadn’t existed before seemed to be somewhat futile. As for the gates, he said if I knew who owned them it might help to speed up any action from their end. Now as they are all on Broxhead Common and the owner of the fence would be the same as the owner of the gates then the answer to that question should have been obvious?
you can see the usual meandering route to the right of the f
Next time: to be continued.