Powys County Council is failing to maintain rights of way
It is rather a shame that as chair of the Local Access Forum I did not know about this report until after it was sent out.
The report makes no reference to the LAF and the point I have been making for sometime that the current plan is in need of urgent review as it is clearly failing.
There is widespread agreement that, for a whole variety of reasons, the council is failing to look after the rights of way in Powys. I have been pressing for your committee to review performance against the ROWIP for the last couple of years. I was originally told that this would be done when time permitted but I was subsequently informed that this was not a role for your committee.
The reality is that there has been no scrutiny of how the council has performed against the ROWIP since it was published in 2018.
In the report before your committee on Thursday it suggests that the council should wait until next year (I have been told separately in the mid part of 26/27) to start a review. For me this is not good enough. When the council is told by an outside inspectorate, e.g. Estyn, that all is not well with a particular service, the council rushes to address this issue straight away.
Unfortunately there isn't an external inspectorate to look at rights of way but surely we don't need that because, as indicated earlier, there is widespread acceptance that the council is failing in its statutory duties to do so.
Can I suggest three things please:
The council does not wait until the middle of the next financial year to start reviewing the ROWIP but instead identifies additional resources so it can be done much sooner to help address the crisis we have now with our rights way
As a precursor to the review the council engages an independent agency to review how it is discharging the nine principal rights of ways duties that highway authorities have e.g. Audit Wales or the Future Generation Commissioner perhaps
There is early discussion with the LAF about the process and timetable for the review
We need to avoid kicking this issue into the long grass yet again.
I do try to avoid exaggerating things, but I do think that it is reasonable to say that the council's failure to address this now is at the expense of future generations.
They will not have good access to the countryside, and all the good that brings, if things continue as they are.
Urgency is required.
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