Commons Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 28:"Page 13, line 4, at end insert—" (2)   The rectification of mistakes under Schedule 1 must be completed by 28th June 2015.”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I rise to move Amendment No. 28 and to speak to Amendment Nos. 30 and 80. These deal with the rectification of mistakes under Schedule 1, which we believe should be time-limited to get them corrected. In Amendment No. 28, we ask that the date should be by 28 June 2015, which would be the completion of the Act. Amendment No. 30 proposes a date three years earlier, which would cover the transitional period. These applications for rights of way—byways and byways open to all traffic, and so on—have, in many counties, formed a sizeable backlog, as the Minister will know with regard to the NERC Bill. Each one has to be investigated and proved before it may be added to a definitive map. The problem is particularly acute in many towns and cities where there was no definitive map already in existence, so the process has had to start from the beginning. Had there been a shorter cut-off date imposed from the beginning, there would have been fewer applications and the backlog would have been smaller. The particular problems surrounding mechanically propelled vehicles on byways open to all traffic, have caused a special government inquiry and the imposition of an earlier than planned closure date. We do not feel that commons registration authorities, who are after all basically the same officials, should face similar problems as small armies of dedicated people search through parish and town records to unearth anything that could be quoted as evidence of previous use of land by the general public. Nor should there be any way in which they can be sued for running out of time to handle applications. Furthermore, those with an interest in open land should not have the possibility of such applications hanging over their heads for years ahead. Those are the reasons for the amendments. I beg to move.