Access to the coast

The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 made provision for extending coastal access and in December 2004 a commitment to improve coastal access was included in DEFRA’s five year strategy. In April 2005 the Labour Party promised that “improving access to coastal areas will be an early priority for a labour third term”, within its election paper entitled “Rural Communities Forward Not Back”. As a result the Countryside Agency, English Nature and the Rural Development Service (combined to form Natural England in 2006), were asked to consider how best to improve access to the English Coast and provide advice to the Government by the end of February 2007. DEFRA carried out a consultation based upon this advice in June 2007.

Where does CSS stand?

CSS response to the consultation document: “Proposals to Improve Access to the English Coast”, DEFRA Consultation – June 2007:

In summary, whilst CSS broadly supports the vision, it firmly believes that achieving the objectives of the vision must depend on a nationally led, locally driven, flexible approach, rather than a “one size fits all” solution.

Through the production of Rights of Way Improvement Plans, Local Authorities already have a good idea of what the requirements and opportunities are for improved coastal access in their particular areas and CSS believes that such documents should form the basis of our future work. One option might be a requirement for appropriate Highway Authorities to produce a Coastal Access Improvement Plan, which could allow flexibility, enabling solutions tailored to fit identified problems and allowing independent local initiatives to be included in the overall Coastal Access Strategy.

CSS proposes the following requirements

• Reasonable compensation should be payable where new rights are created over land.
• Coastal environments will change over time, therefore the ongoing management and maintenance of coastal access will involve a greater ongoing financial commitment than other types of access provision.
• If the vision is to be achieved, then adequate funding must be available, the estimated cost in the consultation is considered to be optimistic
• In order to give the public confidence, new areas of Coastal Access should be defined on maps, accompanied by a written description.
• Emergency powers to divert/close Coastal Access Land must be provided to cope with storm damage and other similar events.

The vision should concentrate less on providing “rights to walk along the length of the English Coast” and more on providing tailored coastal access where an identified public need for such access can be demonstrated.