Travel Plan to Access the Ashing Lane Nature Reserve - Find a freedom of information request

As a frontager to Ashing Lane on the south-east side of the Dunholme by-pass, I am working on a Travel Plan to access the Ashing Lane Nature Reserve, for both motorised vehicles and cycles. Of particular interest and concern is enabling access for mini-buses, mobility vehicles and motorised and other wheelchairs to the All Abilities Area east of the main entrance to Monks Wood.

1.Ascertaining the true current status of Ashing Lane, from the A46 to the metalled Road at Reasby, is the first essential element.

Three years ago I contacted the Highways Department for a definitive answer. At that time your colleague investigated for me and reported that from the A46 to the point marked 'Stepping Stones' (where the track crosses the river leading to the Barlings Eau) the lane was all public highway. Your colleague explained the highway extended in width from hedge or dyke to hedge or dyke at each side along its length. He explained that the only possible way for the public highway to be extinguished was by Act of Parliament and no such Act had been recorded on Ashing Lane. He explained that any 'bridleway' or 'Byway Open to All Traffic' classification had no effect on the underlying and over-riding 'Public Highway.'

Two weeks ago I telephoned the Lincs Highways Department, seeking clarification on the current status of the lane and leaving my email and contact details. I explained that Lincs Highways have erected a sign forbidding use of the highway, which seemed directly at odds with its status and therefore an illegal act. Unfortunately no-one has contacted me.

2.I should be grateful if you would ascertain the current status of the lane from the A46 to Reasby. Please let me know if at any point or points along its length the status of the lane changes, or the rights and responsibilities concerning its condition or rights to access changes.

3.It has been suggested to me that the lane is treated by Lincs Highways as 'in managed decline.' If this is the case, does that form of management allow the highway to be permanently or temporarily closed to all motorised traffic?

4.Does 'managed decline' allow no management regardless of the severity of the decline?

5.Without management, self-set trees will in time obliterate access. Is this allowable along the length of lane/highway where motorised vehicles are now forbidden?

6.Do the frontagers have any legal responsibility to maintain or improve the condition of the lane/highway?

7.Do the frontagers have a legal right to maintain or improve the condition of the lane/highway?

8.If the frontagers improve the condition of the lane/highway, assuming it is considered to be in 'managed decline' by Lincs Highways, do those frontagers then assume any additional legal responsibility for future maintenance of the lane/highway?

9.At what point in the decline of the lane/highway is it necessary for Lincs Highways to intervene? For example, is it incumbent on the Highways Department to maintain an acceptable standard for a 4x4 vehicle winter and summer; for two-wheel drive cars; only for smaller two wheel drive tractors and trailers; or even only for the largest and most modern multi-wheel drive tractors and track-laying agricultural machines? The largest agricultural track-laying machines could travel across huge potholes full of water of sufficient depth to entirely submerge and render invisible a stranded small car and its occupants

Once the status is established and the rights and responsibilities of the various parties are understood and accepted, it would seem helpful for the Highways Department, frontagers and visitors to the Nature Reserve to discuss requirements and solution possibilities.

A few years ago, Lincs Highways filled many of the deepest potholes and for a few weeks the lane was accessible for all users. Unfortunately, as the filling material consisted solely of tarmac clippings, lightly rolled, the wheels of the first large tractors and trailers cut through the newly-laid chippings to the bottom of the deep ruts. Those chippings became a higher surface on the already higher areas, making the potholes effectively deeper and the lane even less accessible to ordinary vehicles and cyclists.

If frontagers combined to hire a large excavator to rip through the stone road to the depth of the deepest potholes, thus incorporating the existing finer clippings to bind with loosened bigger stones, then levelled to correct falls and rolled down with a heavy vibrating roller, a good hard-wearing base would be established.

If the Highways Department supplied a top course of tarmac clippings, which the frontagers rolled down, a good, well-drained access road would result. As small holes in time emerge in the top course, that course could be cost-effectively loosened and rerolled.

Your response is keenly awaited, as understanding the fundamentals affecting the lane is key to establishing an acceptable, adequate and appropriate Travel Plan.

1. This cannot be IER’ed. You can be advised it’s bridleway and be advised it’s also on List of Streets maintained at public expense. Our assessment is that if there ever were public Mechanically Propelled vehicular rights (MOV) in Ashing Lane then they’ve been extinguished between the Nature Reserve car park as it existed 2006 and the box culvert. We do not confirm the existence of public vehicular rights elsewhere in the lane where recorded as a bridleway. IER only allows your access to our information, it doesn’t commit us to research and form a binding corporate opinion on that information and specifically not whether that implies any particular highway status classification. If you want a greater level of certainty regarding the existence or otherwise of public vehicular rights, then feel free to conduct your own research of publicly available information and make use of the application process under Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. The definitive map section would be able to point you towards the relevant factors to research.

2. As Q1

3.There hasn’t been a decision by Lincolnshire County Council to such a course of management. Such a course of management doesn’t exist and isn’t a legally sustainable position to adopt.

4.As Q1

5. It will be maintained to the discretion of LCC as highway authority, including the degree of any scrub spread across the verge areas.

6. No. but if they were exercising what transpired to be a private vehicular right of way they should check the deterioration attributable to that and prevent its interference with lawful public use on foot, bicycle or horseback.

7.Yes

8. Would depend on the level of any agreement with the highway authority. They could expose themselves to liability if somebody was injured in a trip or fall attributable to the deterioration of any surface they provided, the inherent inadequacy of this if applicable or their works themselves. PLI and prior agreement of any materials advised.

9. Intervention would only be needed if it appeared to the highway authority that the prevailing conditions made the route unfit for general public walking or horse riding on the route. The highway authority would also give grave regard to any requirement from the Magistrates to repair the highway but would have recourse to challenge the Magistrates in a higher court if it considered a finding that the route were out of repair or a direction to any course of repair Wednesbury unreasonable and of such financial implication to warrant such challenge. It might be possible to differentiate between the expected general public and the visitors that are being invited to an adjoining site by its owners.