Category: Meetings and Work Parties

Attendees: John , Chris, Pete, Louise, Yvonne, Steve, Sally, Alan

Apologies: Clare, Kay, Gill, Paula, Gill, Sandra, Jackie, Corinne

Routes:

Detton – Prescott – Has been opened up with hedge cutter and some large stone put down in worst of holes. Now needs some small stone on top and ditch clearing in wood down to stream.

Action : John to keep chasing Council for stone.

Hinton – Urgently needs a clearance party as is very overgrown.

Action: Work party (see below)

Hill Houses – Not too bad but could do with overhanging branches cleared

Action: Work party (see below)

Nunnery – Could do with some drainage/improvement work near bottom. Still have option to get small amount of match funding from Hopton Parish council. If we can get some stone from council we could look at this.

Action : All to monitor and feedback

Walters Lane – Council started work. Waiting for digger to become available to order stone and finish work. They have promised to do this soon. Route has recently been damaged by 4×4’s . Only answer is to make up route with stone so that it becomes less of a “play ground” for inconsiderate off road users.

Action: Monitor and chase council if no progress in next few weeks

Top of Crammer Gutter Field – Still waiting for guidelines from Carl Pickup (SWT) on how they want the drainage to be done. (has been chased on a number of occasions). This has been dragging on for nearly 12mths and needs to be sorted before winter.

Action: Chris to chase SWT again and explain that P3 group not prepared to wait any longer to make this bridleway usable.

Titford Bridge – Needs some clearance work

Factory Lane to Detton-Prescott – Route by gate still gets very muddy and could do with some work.

Action: John to speak to new owners when he gets a chance to discuss how to improve this.

Green Shropshire Exchange Grant

Grant of upto £500 available. We might be eligible but need application in by end August.

Action: Louise to investigate and if looks an option contact John, Chris and Clare to look at submitting an application for Crammer Gutter project.

General Publicity and Awareness

Clare is working on a poster we can use to publicise our work. We should also make sure we put up a Clee View Bridleway Group did this poster when we do a work party.

Action: Clare to circulate poster which people can use to promote our work

Action: Chris to get some “we did this” posters done to put up on routes we work on

Work Parties

We agreed to run a work party on the next 3 consecutive Sundays starting at 10am

Sunday 30th July – A – Hinton route. Meet at Hinton end

Sunday 6th August – Will agree on which routes when people have notified us of availability

Sunday 13th August- Will agree on which routes when people have notified us of availability

Routes  to be covered are –

A – Hinton – General clearance

M – Hill Houses (clear overhanging branches etc.) and K – Catherton Common (clear back gorse and widen route across common from road to 3 springs

Y – Cleeton to Clee Hill – Sign Posts

R – Tittford Bridge – Clearance

Action: Chris to email all and ask that they support at least one work party and let him know which dates they can help and coordinate with John.

Fund Raising

Agreed to hold a fun quiz late Autumn similar to other years

Next Meeting

September to organise Quiz. Meeting date to be agreed closer to time.

 

We plan to hold a meeting on Tuesday 25th July 7:30pm at John’s.

Items to discuss include work parties and some much needed clearance work as well as plans for any major projects this year and possible fund raising events.

RSVP to John or myself (Chris) please.

Present:

John Sutton (Chairman), Chris & Jo Bargman, Kay Matthews, Clare Ratcliff, Beverley Taylor, Corinne Griffiths, Jackie Knight, Sally and Alan Barnaby, Paula Porter, Gill Eyre, Jon Nock, Sandra Wright

Apologies:

Yvonne Jones, Steve Jones, Pete Brown, Louise Killey, Olwen Law

Previous Minutes (see website):

These were approved by all attendees

Chairman’s Report:

Improvement work was undertaken on the route C – Detton Prescott and A – Hinton plus some sign posting, clearance work and improvements to gates on various other routes. We did not take on any major new projects as the most important work  had been successfully completed previous year. Refer to website for list of activities and projects undertaken during 2016-2017. A total of 100 hours of volunteer support work plus 12 hours digger and 12 hours dumper work was undertaken. We also had a very successful Quiz fund raiser (see treasurer report) plus a meeting and discussion on the “Lost Routes – Restoring The Record” initiative.

There were various communications/meetings with Council and we were promised that they would undertake major improvement work to route M – Walters Lane plus a number of other routes (see notes from Meeting 24th Nov 2016). So far this has not been done. John has recently spoken to Richard and was informed money had been set aside for Walters Lane. Any spare stone could be used on other routes (Detton).

We are still waiting for a report from Carl Pickup of the Shropshire Wildlife Trust on Route G (top of Cramer Gutter field) on how this can be improved.

Accounts:

Petty Cash Account

	Item	Cost	Income
Sep-16	Fete		34
Oct-16	Quiz
	Donation		40
	Wine sales		7
	Raffle		73.1
	Teams		322
	Food	50
	Digger & Dumper	200
	Digger & Dumper	180
	Totals	430	476.1
Mar-17	Petty Cash Balance		46.1

Bank Account

Date	Debit	Credit	Balance
20/02/2017		150	378.46	Council Grant
28/04/2016	288		228.46	Digger Work

We have a total balance as of 29th March of 378.46 (bank)+ 46.10(petty cash)

Officers:

Trustees – Chris proposed that all attending to be elected as Trustees (see Present for list of names

Seconded by Clare Ratcliff

Chairman – John Sutton

Secretary/Treasurer – Chris Bargman

Proposed Kay, Seconded Jo

Tesco Funding

Groups can apply for funding. Looks like we are eligible. Will need to be for a project e.g Nunnery Lane.

Jo will investigate.

Shropshire Council 

Survey – All to complete (needs to be done by end March)

Outdoor recreation has new website and a useful interactive map (see Useful Links page one our website)

Projects

Crammer Gutter – Still waiting for info from SWT. Chris to chase.

Walters Lane – John/Chris to chase council

Corner of Crossroads – review after Walters Lane has been done.

Nunnery Lane – Will try to tackle this summer. Could use small grant from Hopton Parish Council. Also look at clearing the route from road opposite Nunnery lane.

Detton – Tree has fallen and been cut but needs tidying. Richard W. was going to look at this. Need to make livery yard at his farm aware of work we do.

Clare agreed to create a poster we can print off and put up publicising the work we do.

Route  from Cleeton over hill – need to do more way marking. Could start from top of hill. Work party when dried up a bit.

Oreton Riders, Runners & walkers Facebook Group. Local group, use to notify of any informal rides.

Shropshire Bridleways & Carriage Driving Forum – 5th June at Shire Hall. Gill is planning to attend. Good opportunity to meet up with council reps.

 

AGM was closed with thanks to attendees and to Chris and Jo for hosting the event

Sorry,  change of date for AGM. Now Wednesday 29th March. Other details same.

The overhanging branches have been cleared plus general clearance on the  Hinton bridle-path so the route is now much easier to negotiate.  This was done by John on his own as  no one else was available or turned up at the work-party on Sunday.

Work party 10am Sunday 12th March 2017 to clear overhanging branches from Route A Hinton – Winterdine Bridleway.

Meet at Hinton end.

Present:

John, Chris, Clare, Gill, Kay, Wendy, Gill

Apologies:

Pete, sally, Louise, Paula, Yvonne, Steve

Lost Routes – Restoring The Record

A summary was circulated (created by Sally). See below.

Wendy (Beaumont) has been working on this in her own area (Ditton Priors) and gave us a lot of very useful advice. A big thank you to her.

First step is to identify an area/route and then using various archive resources to research any documentation that may help to show that this was a historical right of access. Some documents and maps are available on-line e.g. Scottish Archive records do have English records available online. Aim is to find some evidence that the selected route was once a road or bridleway. Look at records from 1880 to early 1900’s. Any road at this time would naturally be for horses as cars were not in wide use plus any records to say it would have been a public use (e.g. to an Inn or cider house). Wendy had a set of Cassini Historical Maps 1831-1832, 1902-1902, 1920-1921 for our area which showed a number of routes as roads or tracks which we would be interested in making into bridleways. Gill Eyre also has some useful historical maps which we can access. At some stage a visit to Shropshire Archives will be needed.

Wendy recommended that we focus on routes which are not on current definitive maps as these are the ones we will lose in 2026.

BHS have good expertise and may be able to help and also put their names down on any paperwork (to avoid any upset with the local land owners). A couple of routes were proposed and we will need to research these further.

Council Support for Improvement Projects

Tim will organise stone and for their digger to improve Walters Lane. He would like us to first talk to Walter to make sure he is aware of plans and does not have any objections. ACTION – John to either speak to Walter or ask Steve Jones to talk to him and then let Tim know and he will go ahead. They have budgeted for this work.

Crammer Gutter to bottom of Withies Bank – Tim will look at doing some digger work on this to open up ditches (may not be until next year)

Detton to Prescott – Tim will look at doing digger work top open up ditch down to brook (may not be until next year)

Chris had separately spoken to Tim and John to Richard (Council Rights Of Way Team) and both said same. They have budget constraints and are under pressure to do paid work so are not able to commit to any more work.

Top of Crammer Gutter – ACTION Chris to chase Carl Pickup for info on what we can do regarding drainage etc. Hopefully the council will provide stone and we have some drainage pipes we could probably use. We can then ask Ed if he is still prepared to provide some digger work.

Finance

The Quiz was a great success and generated some much needed funds to pay for work that has already been done.

Thanks again to everyone involved !

Next Meeting

It was proposed that we have our “Christmas Meal” on Wed Jan 11th at the Fighting Cocks. Please put this in your diaries.

 

SUMMARY OF RIGHTS OF WAY – RESTORING THE RECORD

Why?

·        In 2000, Parliament decided any old unrecorded ways should be extinguished to provide certainty to landowners

·        But 25 years allowed for the legal record to be brought up-to-date

·        Therefore any unrecorded ways will cease to exist in 2026

How are Public Rights of Way Recorded?

·        Definitive maps

·        Responsibility of the local authority to keep up-to-date

How to get the Definitive Map Updated

·        Anyone can  apply for a change to the definitive map

·        Submit:

A completed application form

A map showing the route to be added or reclassified

Evidence to support the change

·        If local authority agrees it makes a “definitive map modification order” – open for objections and,  if received, determined by Inspector acting for Secretary of State

Different Approaches

·        Research a particular route that has been regularly ridden – may be designated as a footpath

·        Research a route that stops in the middle of nowhere for no apparent reason

·        Research a whole geographical area for possible historical paths that are not defined on the current Ordnance Survey maps

Methods of Research

·        The text details:

A suggested order, with separate methods for single routes or area-based research

Frequently consulted types of evidence – giving values and star ratings

The mechanics of making the application and the statutory forms

Helpful hints for records office visitors

A guide to archive and record offices

Questions to Answer

·        Establish whether particular route(s) are to be researched or an area approach?

·        Who is prepared to dedicate the time to do the research?

·        What historical records are available within the group to do the initial investigation?

(n.b. Gill Eyre has some historical maps which Sally and Gill looked at briefly – John has a set of the current definitive maps for the area in large scale – the book is available to guide you through the process)

If the issue is different – e.g. the obstruction of a current designated bridleway (Cleeton Court) then this should be dealt with directly with the Local Authority Countryside Mapping and Enforcement Team