Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

moved Amendment No. 320:"Page 25, line 43, leave out subsection (4)." The noble Lord said: In moving the amendment, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 129. This has taken me mildly by surprise. I seem to have been waiting weeks to introduce my brief amendment to this Bill, and suddenly it comes when I was daydreaming. I will not detain the Committee for long in explaining the purposes of the new clause which I wish to see inserted into the Bill. We have had lengthy debates on the green lanes issue over some time. It has been controversial and many different points of view have been expressed. I am not aware that my amendment is of an equally controversial nature. Indeed, I hope my noble friend on the Front Bench will consider its merits. The purpose of Amendment No. 129 is to rectify a strange anomaly in the law. The amendment provides that every inner London borough and the City of London would,"““have the duty to prepare and keep under continuous review a definitive map and statement of public rights of way””," in their area. For many years every area except for the 12 inner London boroughs and the City have had to have an official map of public rights way, known as the definitive map. Londoners have been losing out. The Bill provides a perfect opportunity to rectify the anomaly by placing a duty on the inner London boroughs to prepare these maps. Such an opportunity might not readily arise again for a number of years. Perhaps it would be helpful if I briefly outline the history of this matter. The requirement for definitive maps first appeared in the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949. All rural surveying authorities were required to prepare them. Before that, recreational walks, horseback riding and so on must have been a matter of chance because it would have been difficult to know whether one was on a public highway or not. The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 made definitive maps compulsory for everywhere else, including all urban areas; that is, everywhere except inner London. The benefits of such maps to the public are legion. If public highways are not officially recorded they can be built over, encroached on, smuggled into someone’s garden or just plain lost—without warning, either through ignorance or by intent. Unrecorded paths are unlikely to be shown on popular maps. People do not know where they are and may not use them, or users may be challenged and either not know or not be able to prove that they have a right to be there. Inner London is rich in these sorts of public paths and they ought to be recorded—alleyways, Dickensian passageways and Pepysian stairs. There are ways down to the foreshore of the Thames and so forth, many of which are valuable as traffic-free shortcuts. Definitive maps should encourage the authorities to take more pride in their paths. If the law is amended to require the inner London boroughs to prepare maps, I am confident that amenity groups and voluntary organisations which support this proposal will be in a position to encourage their members to play an active role in undertaking surveys, submitting claims for public highways and checking maps. It would be well worth it to ensure that London’s historic path network is properly recorded and protected. In bringing forward this amendment I am supported by my noble friends Lord Dubs and Lord Soley who, in previous lives, both represented inner London boroughs and are aware of the issue. I also have to say with great sadness that I would without doubt have been supported by my friend Tony Banks, Lord Stratford, if he had been able to be with me here tonight. Of that I am absolutely certain. I beg to move.