FUMING locals are locked in a row with their neighbour who wants to block off a “300-year-old” footpath leading to the town centre.
Tempers have flared in a neighbour row in Norfolk – with a farm owner threatening to close the popular pathway between Marriott’s Way and Windmill Lane, Norwich.
The spat started when Nigel Darling insisted the route, which is popular among pedestrians, horse rider and dog walkers, is receiving “appalling” treatment.
He said cars are driven in non-permitted areas, people walk across sowed farmland and dogs are often allowed off the lead.
The enraged local added that signs have been smashed and newly planted hedges have been destroyed.
He told Evening News: “If this continues we shall have to shut the pathway.”
Town Councillor Gary Blundell and an outraged local have fought back, saying the track’s closure would mean people “will have a much further walk” to Marriott’s Way.
They have teamed up to make the track a legal right of way but this requires proving it has been used for over a decade.
But according to the Councillor, the path has been used for almost three centuries.
He has submitted the proposal to Norfolk County Council, who will deliberate the plan in the coming months.
He said: “It should be added to the definitive map so that people can continue to enjoy it for hundreds of years into the future as they have done for hundreds of years in the past.”
The farm owner has insisted he will reject any proposals to make the path a legal right of way – saying he is determined to “protect the habitat”.
This comes just months after a Norfolk couple spent their life savings and even faced jail time in a dispute with their late neighbour over a wooden fence.
Graham and Katherine Bateson, 75 and 73, spent £45,000 on legal fees attempting to remove a boundary put up by their neighbour, Wendy Leedham.
To their dismay, Leedham, who died at age 74, had obtained planning permission to erect the fence at the end o their bungalow, despite the couple being told it was a shared driveway.
Retired factory supervisor Mrs Bateson told the Eastern Daily Press: “We’d lived here 32 years without any problems with the previous neighbours, they all agreed it was a shared driveway.
“To have all your life savings taken away like that, when you knew you were right in the first place.”
The couple bought their two-bedroom house in Snettisham back in 1987 but, unbeknownst to them, their serene cul-de-sac would turn into a bitter legal battleground.
Norwich City Council have been approached for comment.
Right of way on public footpaths
It is a criminal offence, under section 137 of the Highways Act 1980, to obstruct the whole or part of the width of a public path.
An obstructed path is one where something is lying (or has been placed) across the path which physically prevents you from using that part of the path.
Obstructions may include barbed wire on the top rail of a stile; or rubbish dumped on, or a garden boundary extended over, a right of way.
Problems affecting rights of way need to be reported to the highway authority, this would be the county council in England and Wales and the London Borough Council in the capital.
Highway Authorities have duties and powers to keep highways maintained, open and available for use.
The actions that an authority can take include service of a notice on the person causing the offence; telling him or her what action the authority intends taking with powers to recover their costs; and, where necessary, taking the potential offender to the Magistrates’ Court for an order to remove the issue.
