Institute of Public Rights of Way and Excuses Management

Delighted to host the first in a series of  guest blogs from IPROWE .

Had a particularly complex prow problem to deal with recently which illustrates neatly just how hard this job can be! Fortunately it came in on a Wednesday and so met my priority criteria of  wearing matching red underwear and socks on a day with a W in it. The only higher criteria would be reports received on one of the 3 Friday afternoons a year when I go commando and have not flexed off.

My tricky little prow issue came in via our Chief Executive who was showing a previously unseen interest in a public footpath report. Always a bit of a googly when the big cheese lobs one in like that isn’t it? I decided to drop everything I was doing to visit the site. Unfortunately this meant delaying serving notice on a number of obstructions for Peak & Southern Ramblers Society. Well they’ve been waiting 30 years for the priority matrix to churn them out so what’s another decade?

On the face of it the Chief Exec’s little problem seemed incredibly straight forward. Leaves on a public footpath making it look a bit untidy according to the Chair of Lower Dumpdale Parish Council who incidentally happens to be the Chief Execs brother in law. Funny coincidence that.

However when I visited the site that same day I realised the scale of the  problem to hand. Despite a nagging little voice in my head saying “Just get the brush and shovel and a bin bag  from the van and clear them away” I couldn’t help but think there was more to it than that. Clearly other matters would have to be set aside as I looked into the legal intricacies of this issue further.

We can’t do everything at once and if I’m tied up on a complex matter like the Chief Exec’s leaves then that’s time I cannot spend doing real work like moving obstructions,putting up sign posts or on definitive map work. Whilst this may be the public’s expectation I’m afraid It’s just not as simple as that . Austerity has led to huge budget cuts and now the Chief Exec only has one rights of way officer to run around after him instead of  the ten he was used too. This is bound to have an effect on levels of service we can provide to the public…..

To Be Continued 

The real blog which is a good read but perhaps does give some indication as to why things take soooo looong to get sorted in the world of rights of way.