The path between Halifax cut and Bourne Park is in a shocking state of repair, partly due to the fact that no one is quite sure of who owns it. The right of way is not certain either. Ben Gummer asked a question on the right of way last week:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether Network Rail plans to make formal arrangements for public access to the footpath it owns between Bourne park and Halifax road in respect of its location on Sustrans National Cycle Route 1.
The reply from Theresa Villiers, the Minister of State for Railways was quite bland:
This is an operational matter for Network Rail as the owner and operator of the national rail network. My hon. Friend should contact Network Rail’s acting chief executive at the following address for a response to his question:
Acting Chief Executive
Network Rail
90 York Way
London, N1 9AG.
I am told the Network Rail are in fact looking at this now, although there is an ownership issue.
The odd thing is that in the last government the minister for railways was none other than Chris Mole. I know that Philip Smart has been looking into this issue as well, but either never thought that Chris Mole would be interested or Chris Mole simply was not interested in such a small matter that affected “little people”. After all according to Freedom of Information requests he had no meetings with the executives of National Express East Anglia during his time in the Ministry of Transport, and that inaction affected thousands of his constituents – many of them on a daily basis.
(When Ben Gummer did his cycle around Ipswich I made sure that the cycle Ipswich people put the route through that path, even though it is not one of the marked roads, so now he knows first hand how shockingly bad it is).
