Members of the public may ask questions or make statements at this meeting if they have given notice to Dawn Drury of Democratic Services and supplied the text (contact details below) by midday on Friday 16 January, three working days before the day of the meeting. Each speaker should limit themselves to 3 minutes on any item. Members of the public who have given notice will be invited to speak:-
· at this point in the meeting if their questions/statements relate to matters which are not otherwise on the Agenda (subject to an overall time limit of 30 minutes);
· when the relevant Agenda item is being considered if they wish to speak on a matter which is on the Agenda for this meeting.
If you are
exercising your right to speak at this meeting, but do not wish to be recorded,
please inform the Chairman who will instruct anyone who may be taking a
recording to cease while you speak.
Minutes:
There was one public question from Mr Christopher Dunn, as follows:
I wish to express my deep concern re the state of PROW's in
North Yorkshire, especially the Killinghall area. The C Dunn exhaustive and
exhausting PROW Killinghall survey 05/11/2022 and a multitude of
complaints/conversations with NYCC/NYC has resulted in little or no
improvement, in three years.
To my knowledge NYC/NYCC has only erected three finger
posts, which after all is a statutory duty under the Wildlife and Countryside
Act! NYC appear to have a 'hands off’,
no finger posting rule where there are stroppy landowners and/or impassable
paths.
NYC dutifully under Planning commitments/diversion
requests warn developers/landowners not to affect any PROW without due process
FIRST, but these warnings seem worthless, this is exemplified by PROW 1565/5
& 1565/3, where the path has either been totally pre-emptively diverted or
totally obstructed for 75 years!
I did receive a vague commitment from NYCC/NYC to
proceed 'legally' with issues on PROW 1565/15,16 but absolutely nothing has
happened.
Why has improvement of the PROW network around
Killinghall been so poor?
In response, Ian Kelly thanked Mr Dunn for his continued commitment to highlighting issues on the public rights of way network in the Killinghall area and explained to Mr Dunn and Members that the Countryside Access Service (CAS) recognised and appreciated the considerable time and effort that Mr Dunn personally invested in surveying routes and reporting issues which contributed to officers wider understanding of the network.
As a service, CAS were making steady progress in addressing reported issues across the county, including in Killinghall, and would continue to do so as highlighted in the annual CAS reports to the Local Access Forum. However, as a small team responsible for a very large and complex network, officers must prioritise their work to focus first on matters that presented the greatest risk to public balanced alongside many other demands on the service. This prioritisation approach had been discussed with, and accepted by, the Local Access Forum.
The CAS remained committed to working through the issues Mr Dunn had raised and indeed the service was actively working on diversions at Crag Hill Cottage (footpath 15.65/3) and Spruisty Grange (footpath 15.65/5) which, if confirmed, would resolve the issues on those routes. The CAS would continue to take forward the necessary legal and maintenance actions as resources allowed, although this would mean that some lower‑priority matters may take longer to resolve, but Mr Kelly assured Members that Mr Dunn’s concerns would be neither overlooked nor dismissed.
Mr Kelly thanked Mr Dunn again for his engagement and ongoing support for the rights of way network.
Mr Dunn then asked a supplementary question in relation to the installation of finger posts, to which Mr Kelly responded that there were approximately 9000 finger posts across North Yorkshire, and that in the year 2024 to 2025 the CAS had installed 436 over the County as part of an annual rolling programme. It was noted that although additional capital funding had been secured, prioritisation remained necessary due to limited resources and a small officer team.
The Chair acknowledged the financial constraints and thanked Mr Dunn for raising concerns about his particular area, and for his contribution to the meeting.