Draft Bradford District Local Plan - Preferred Options (Regulation 18) February 2021

Comment

Representation ID: 27503

Received: 24/03/2021

Respondent: Clayton Footpath Group

Smothering our rich heritage of footpaths with housing that hems in the walkways and bridle paths making them difficult to follow and rapidly overgrown with brambles and nettles makes them sites for rubbish. All this seriously degrades the human environment for the residents and degrades an area already in the 10% of most deprived areas of the UK.
New builds should celebrate the footpaths ensuring they are easily accessible and friendly spaces to walk along.
Clayton has an extensive network of paths which cut through the proposed housing developments in the local plan. The footpaths should be formally identified on the ordnance survey maps as is the case in Calderdale where they are much better protected. should be registered and improved.
The recent new developments have had little regard for this network of footpaths. Footpaths should be recognised in new developments as a highly attractive component.

Comment

Representation ID: 27504

Received: 24/03/2021

Respondent: Clayton Footpath Group

The rural outlook of the existing footpath network has been made unattractive and diminished by the numbers of housing developments in and around Clayton. It makes Clayton a less attractive place to live as it becomes more and more built up and the green belt diminishes. If the strategy is to include safe footpaths and cycle routes then attention should be paid to the attractiveness of such routes.
The Group is concerned about the loss of footpaths. Footpaths in Clayton and surroundings should be formally recorded to provide a legal Rights of Way where for each path the route is indicated by a line on the map with the notation used to show its classification. In Bradford the situation is much easier to override than Calderdale as we are seeing with the closure of the ancient path from Deep Lane to Back Fold.
In Bradford this record is called the Definitive Map and Statement of Public Rights of Way. It is marked by an intermittent dotted line and does not have the legal force of those in Calderdale.