A BACKLOG of more than 260 right of way cases stretching back 20 years is being dealt with at Staffordshire County Council, it has been revealed.
Cases involving public inquiries could cost the authority millions of pounds, Cllr Bob Egginton – the new chairperson of the Countryside and Rights of Way Panel – said.
Staffordshire County Council has been dealing with a lengthy backlog for several years.
Back in 2019, under the previous Conservative administration, there were cases dating back to the late 1990s being considered and more than 240 applications still to be dealt with.
At the time, ramblers Geoff Preston and Graham Reay hit out at the delays. At one point an average of just one application a year was being determined they claimed, meaning it would take several decades to clear the backlog and they would not live to see some of the applications processed if the same rate of decision making continued.
A large number of applications were made more than 20 years ago under section 53 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981 to modify the council’s definitive map and statement of rights of way – mainly to add unrecorded public paths and public user rights to the legal records.
At a corporate overview and scrutiny committee meeting, Cllr Egginton revealed the current situation. He said:
“The panel has found that we’ve got a backlog of over 260 cases going back 20 years.
“We’ve listened to the officers and the legal team – and in September it was suggested we delegate some of the cases to be determined by the Secretary of State.
“This was to free up wasted time by the officers going back and forward, wasting the panel’s time, so hopefully we will try and get through some of these backlogs.
“The panel’s offered to attend more meetings regularly to get through this backlog if required. We feel that we also need to scrutinise costs spent on barristers, solicitors and specialists.
“Some of the public inquiry cases could cost the county millions of pounds in costs. Some of them are public green space issues and we feel we need the officers to do due diligence so that some of these cases don’t go against us and cost us a load of money.
“Hopefully we can get down this backlog of 260 cases that we’ve inherited. I don’t know how come we’ve inherited it, but we’re talking quite a substantial amount of money to get through some of these cases.”
Cllr Chris Large, cabinet member for finance and resources, said Staffordshire County Council’s Reform UK administration was continuing “to look at where efficiency savings can be made across the council and where wastage and duplication can be removed”
He said:
“We were only introduced to this [the backlog] about two to three weeks ago. We met with the officers and we discussed it.
“The view, when we had understood the complexity and size of it and just the job in hand, made me realise we should have a strategic review.
“There’s thousands of miles of footpaths and small bridges and there is that risk of liability. For some reason it has got behind. We are, as a county, no different to many other counties – I think there are many across the UK that are in exactly the same position as ourselves.
“But we need to think out of the box with this. With the advent of drone technology and using other groups of people we’re widening the project.
“I’d like to make it into a project, because then we can keep strict control over the costs, the head count, the outcomes and the key performance indicators that go with it.”
