Tag: green chain

When I was preparing to write this post I was expecting that I would  be expressing disappointment and frustration about the two footpath closures in the area: the Green Chain Walk through Woodlands Farm and the path between Shooters Hill and Academy Place. However events yesterday suggest that there may be grounds for cautious optimism that the Woodlands Green Chain dispute can be resolved.

The latest issue of Ramblers‘ South East Walker newspaper suggested that the dispute was continuing in the same vein as before. There is an article by Des Garahan, Campaigns Officer for Inner London Ramblers, thanking readers for responding in support of the campaign to reopen the path, and asking for further evidence of use of the path before 1992 to help get it established as a public right of way. However the paper also printed a letter from a Rambler suggesting a more flexible approach, and saying that she “would gladly walk an alternative route if it meant that the farm were to be preserved as it is now”.

I had also heard from the farm that they had attended the Inner London Ramblers AGM with the intention of putting their case, but they “experienced hostility and rudeness, and were, for the most part, prevented from saying anything to the meeting.”  Well, as least they tried to have an open discussion about the issues. Later the farm e-mailed me stating their position:

We are writing to you to update the position with regard to the Green Chain route across Woodlands Farm. As you know, the present claimed path across the farm is neither a right of way nor a permissive path, legally it has no status. We fully accept that it is the widely advertised route of the South East London Green Chain Section 3 and Woodlands Farm has always been extremely anxious to resolve this problem as soon as possible. We feel that if we accept the current claimed route across Woodlands Farm it will result in serious damage to the character of the farm, a severe curtailment of our actives and threaten the viability of the whole project.

Since 1996 many hundreds of volunteers at Woodlands Farm have worked tirelessly a derelict urban wasteland into a very popular and successful city farm of high wildlife and biodiversity value. We are naturally saddened and very anxious that the current campaign by Inner London Ramblers and the Green Chain Working Party to establish a public right of way across Woodlands Farm with 24/7 access could kill the Woodlands Farm project stone dead. The reasons for saying this are set out in the attached documents and these have appeared in our newsletter.

Put briefly, if a right of way were established along the route of the present claimed Green Chain, two of our largest hay meadows would be open to all and sundry with no restriction. In the past, as you know, this has resulted in arson, burglary and attacks on our livestock and threats to our staff and volunteers. We’ve been able to reduce this anti-social behaviour by locking the gates at Dryden Road and Bellegrove Road. The Woodlands Farm Trust has a perfect legal right to do this.

In order to facilitate the Green Chain Walk we have offered a perfectly feasible and enjoyable diversion, along an existing public footpath at Hillview. The WFT would then provide a permissive footpath across a short section of the farm to the Dryden Road gate, which could then be unlocked and left open. See attached map. This strategy of a diverted footpath meets with the approval of Blackheath Ramblers and North West Kent Ramblers.

…

As you reported previously, the 2012 AGM of the Woodlands Farm Trust voted unanimously for the Board to resist the efforts of Inner London Ramblers and the Green Chain Working Party to impose a new footpath across our fields. If there is no settlement this can only result in prolonged and costly litigation and to what end? Our proposed diversion is only 100 yards east of the current claimed footpath. Woodlands Farm Trust will resist any attempt to impose a new footpath on us and for the reasons we have stated, we feel we are now fighting for our lives.
Dr Barry Gray (Chair)
Maggie Jones (Vice Chair)

Things seemed to be escalating yesterday (Saturday) morning when I saw this tweet:

Off 2 shooters hill 2 leaflet surrounding streets about blocked green chain walk 4 @ramblersgb @londonramblers

— walking class hero (@walkngclasshero) March 9, 2013

Oh dear, I thought, that doesn’t sound like it will lead to an agreement between Ramblers and the Farm  that will get the path reopened. However later in the day I received this update from Maggie Jones, Vice Chair at the farm:

A few farm Board members and volunteers met the 4 people from Ramblers this lunchtime at the Oxleas Café. After much discussion and explanation of the Farm’s position they agreed not to leaflet today and to take consideration of the Farm’s position.

And there was also this update on twitter:

Shooters Hill leafletting postponed following lengthy impromptu ultimately constructive open air meeting with woodlands farm representatives — walking class hero (@walkngclasshero) March 9, 2013

So some positive developments, and cautious optimism that the dispute can be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction, but still a little way to go before the gate is reopened permanently, I guess.

I heard that the other footpath closure in the area, the MoD’s closure of the path between Shooters Hill and Academy Place is looking less optimistic. An attempt to ascertain whether the footpath was a right of way by contacting Greenwich Council, yielded this response:

As a Metropolitan Borough Council, Royal Greenwich is not required by law to hold definitive records or information pertaining to ‘Public Rights of Way, By ways, or Bridlepaths. However I can confirm to the best of my knowledge that the footpath you are referring to is private and is not a public right of way.

According to Ramblers’ Put London on the Map campaign  there is an oddity in the law which means that footpaths in London do not have the same legal protection as footpaths in other parts of the country. London Boroughs do not have to maintain definitive maps of rights of way, and so nearly all of them don’t do so. This makes it difficult to find out if a path is a right of way. Justin Cooke, Senior Policy Officer at Ramblers told me in an e-mail:

But if it turns out it is MOD land and use of the path has always been by permission, i.e. they allowed it but never granted anyone a right to use the path in doing so, then they would have the right to close it as they have done.

I should stress that Ramblers haven’t given up on the issue and it has been passed on to their local volunteer for the area for further action.

There’s one other avenue to follow up: local MP Clive Efford is a keen supporter of Ramblers, as he said in an e-mail about the 80^th anniversary of the Kinder Scout Trespass which included the photo below. I’m looking forward to his response to a request for support in getting the path reopened ….

My copy  of South East Walker, the Ramblers regional newspaper, has just arrived, and once again the Green Chain Walk through Woodlands Farm features in its pages.  A letter from farm trustees Barry Gray and Maggie Jones on page 3 and another article by Inner London Ramblers Campaigns Officer Des Garrahan on page 5 represent the latest steps in an ongoing dispute about the (currently blocked) path through the farm. I’ve covered the background in earlier posts.

The stage was set for the latest developments  at the start of October at the well-attended Woodlands Farm AGM where a motion was raised to authorise the trustees to negotiate with Ramblers on an alternative route for the Green Chain walk through the farm. This motion was carried almost unanimously, with just two abstentions.  As I understand it,  the farm’s proposal is that rather than going straight across the farm from the Keats Road/Dryden Road gate the path would turn sharp left along the edge of the farm and link up with Footpath 245. On the map, right, taken from the Green Chain Walk’s “Suggested route if the gates are locked” the farm’s proposed route would go from Gate B to the red alternative route.  The farm would pay for this to be fenced, in the same way as Footpath 245,  preventing access to the farm’s field.

The Farm Trustees’ letter explains the farm’s position, their contribution to the local community and their reason for locking the gates: “because when the gates are left open they are used not only by friendly ramblers and walkers, but also by arsonists, thieves, drug users and those who have, in the past, set dogs on our livestock, often killing or maiming.” The letter concludes by suggesting talks between Ramblers and the Farm:

Much is at stake here and cool heads are needed. We are reasonable people and not ogres. We suggest that Mr Garrahan calms down a little, gets his facts right and, would it be too much to ask; that he comes to talk to us at Woodlands Farm, particularly as he now has the added responsibility of being a trustee on the Ramblers’ board.

We are not depriving people of the ability to walk in our fields. Subject to the movement of stock they can visit and see what a volunteer-run trust can do to preserve and improve wildlife and biodiversity so near to the centre of London. What they cannot do at present is walk through as if it were a public route.

In a week when we were reminded of the burglary and vandalism at the farm earlier in the year by @MPSGreenwich’s tweet: “3 teenagers who damaged and burgled #Woodlands Farm have received suspended sentences, curfew orders & electronic tagging”,  it’s clear that Woodlands Farm are right to be concerned about their security.

Des Garrahan’s article, Blocked Green Chain Walk at Woodlands Farm, is an update on “the campaign to to remove the obstructions blocking the Green Chain Walk at Woodlands Farm and get this part of the route established as a public right of way.”  The current phase of the campaign is the collation of witness evidence, and he asks for people who have walked the path through the farm, particularly if it was before 1992, to get in touch with Des at Ramblers’ Central Office.

Des concludes by thanking “all the people at the Green Chain Walk” for their continued support and advice. I assume this is referring to the Green Chain Walking Party which the farm trustees mention in their letter as having rejected their proposal for rerouting the path. According to the Green Chain web site this group is made up of representatives of five boroughs – Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich, Lewisham and Southwark:

This officer level working party was set up in 1975, comprising Planning Officers from the authorities, and has been in existence ever since. Shortly after this a Joint Committee of Members was set up. This is for the main part composed of the Chairmen or Vice-Chairmen of the constituent authorities Development Control and Recreation Committees. In the case of both the Working Party and the Joint Committee, the Greater London and South East Regional Sports Council are represented. It should be noted that prior to its demise, the GLC was also involved and in fact at officer level provided considerable input. The officer level Working Party meets at two monthly intervals and the Joint Committee twice a year.

The Green Chain Joint Committee is formed of councillors from the five boroughs; unfortunately the Greenwich Council web page link to give further information about the committee and access to agendas and minutes just leads to a blank page,  and the committee has no meetings shown in the council on-line calendar for the last year or the next six months.

I’m very surprised that these bodies which are responsible for the running of the Green Chain Walk haven’t taken a more active role in mediating in the dispute. In the meantime the gates are still locked and walkers are being inconvenienced when they try to walk the Green Chain.

I still believe the various parties to the dispute should get together to talk about possible resolutions rather than waste charities’ money on a legal process. Woodlands Farm have clearly communicated what they are trying to achieve, made a proposal for resolving the problem and issued an invitation to talk. The ball now seems to be in Ramblers’ court.

As a fully-paid-up member of both the Woodlands Farm Trust and Ramblers, the dispute about the blocked section of the Green Chain Walk through the farm fills me with dismay. I can understand the concerns on both sides, but get really worried that they don’t seem to be talking constructively and collaboratively about the problem, and that positions are becoming more entrenched.

I learnt about the latest development when my copy of the Autumn 2012 edition of the Ramblers’ magazine Walk arrived, with the latest South East Walker newspaper. In an article  titled Mind the gap, Des Garahan (twitter @ramblerdes), a member of  The Ramblers’ Board of Trustees and Campaigns Officer for Inner London Ramblers, presents the Ramblers’ point of view. It appears a classic case of the kind of situation that Ramblers exists to fight – an unsympathetic landowner preventing access to a public path ….. and that path is now the weakest  link in a significant walking route that is seen as one of the enduring achievements of the 1970s.

The article recognises the complexities of the impasse – the disputed path is not a public right of way, but a permissive path, albeit one that Woodlands agreed could be part of the Green Chain Walk when the route was first established. It continues:

Inner London Ramblers feels it now has no option but to begin the ponderous process of claiming the path as a public right of way and get this stretch of the route included on Bexley’s Definitive map. Despite a reputation to the contrary it is rare that we resort to the legal process. Contact has been made with the borough and the Green Chain Walk users group and both are very supportive of this action.

However when the locked gate that blocks the path was left open it caused a lot of problems for the farm. The gate is at the furthest reaches of the farm, out of site of the farm buildings where most of the volunteers work. Consequently there is no-one nearby to prevent the acts of  petty vandalism that have happened,  such as starting fires. More seriously  farm animals have been attacked on a number of occasions by dogs who were allowed to run free by their owners – again originating from the same gate. The farm has been willing to open the gate for walking groups who contact them in advance on 0208 319 8900, though this doesn’t help the casual walker. The farm has started a petition in support of their position that the path should be closed, which visitors to the farm’s recent Summer Show were asked to sign.

It’s the casual walker following the Green Chain Walk sign posts who suffers most from this dispute; the sign posts all point towards the locked gate. On the farm side this could mean that a rambler walks a mile across the farm only to find their way blocked and have to re-trace their steps. On the Dryden Road side it’s a walk of a couple of hundred yards along a narrow track, impeded by brambles, nettles and fallen trees to the locked farm gate. There is an alternative route via Footpath 245 near the Green Man pub – linked to on the previous e-shootershill post on this topic – but there’s nothing on the Green Chain Walk to indicate this. On both sides of the gate the path is becoming overgrown and impassable through lack of use and maintenance.

I wonder what ideas the Farm and Ramblers have investigated that would  resolve the dispute to everyone’s satisfaction? One suggestion was that there should be a notice board at the locked gate with a phone number to call to ask for the gate to be unlocked. I guess that means that the farm would need to have someone to answer the phone and walk down to the gate, though that’s surely possible. Maybe a local householder would agree to be a key holder? Could the gate be unlocked when farm volunteers are working nearby? And could the signposts and Green Chain Walk publicity material show the alternative, Footpath 245, route for times when the gate is unavoidably locked. (I found Footpath 245 itself a very enjoyable walk, almost as good as the beautiful track through the farm’s meadows).

As someone who donates to both Ramblers and the Farm I would rather they got together to talk about possible ways to resolve the dispute than waste the two charities’ money on the legal process.