Signs and Times

Walkers groups have done sterling work over the years. Footpaths need to be kept open and any indication that landowners might be making things difficult should be resisted. Public access is now legally protected but some who wish to keep us off the land find ways to get round the regulations and that's where experienced old hands are useful. Among these are the members of the Peak and Northern Footpaths Society.

The names on the small notice attached here go back a very long way and much has changed since G H B Ward was a major figure in access campaigns. The question might be asked : what is its role today? Many campaigns and battles from the old days have been won. There are still public access issues especially on private land. But here and for many miles around the land is public. On some of the new issues that have arisen the PNFS and other groups such as the Ramblers seem to have little to say, or if they do it gets said where others can't easily hear it. I'm thinking here of the stakeholder groups of the conservation charities and of the Local Access Forums where members are pre selected by officers and where minutes are either not available or are only sketchy.

The PNFS does not take a position, for example, on the campaign by cyclists to get access to footpaths in addition to bridleways. I have often suspected that they lend their support to conservation people who go in for very intrusive management such as the farm management of public land on the moors which would go further than commenting on access implications.

On the question of cycling I can't see why they should hold back. Surely if they mean anything in this century they should be taking a firm stand, one way or another. Of course they may be more reluctant to take on young bikers than tweedy landowners.

Some walkers on Blacka Moor see the new signs that have been going up as more than the minimum requirement and feel that there is a danger that they go beyond simply useful and become another way of managers publicising their role. There have certainly been a lot of new posts gone up lately. It would be helpful to know what they thought of the flagstones on Blacka.

And what about footpath blocking by these characters?