I've just had a most miserable day at my council's various departments:augie
I went along all nice like to "view" the Definative Map.
Well I did eventualy get to see it, bit of a white glove moment
It's circa 1950 and falling to bits and er "useless" according to the nice map lady!
I explained I wanted to checkout some routes for offraoding.
I might as well have been talking martian. "Not here mate", go and see those chaps in Highways, they're the ones that know if the roads open"
So off to Highways, closed for lunch, sometime later, "Not here mate , you have to have a definate map for that! We're not allowed it, you need to go to the council planing dept"
WHAT says I:doh
Off to planing, sometime later, "No mate, no off roading here"
Anyway after many happy hours in the world of "Jobs Worth", I now understand this:
Ceredigion (and other councils) want every chuffin' lane shut,end of!
There are now 8km left avail in Ceredigion, however some of those are already closed!
Unclassified roads are in dispute every day so you need to check each route each week.
As regards maintaining a track or route , they said NO WAY. To do with liability and precdents etc.
There was one very small glimmer of hope though, it's called the Cambrian Mountain pilot project. They are looking into joining up a few of the remaining routes with new ones and changing some bridle ways etc. Trouble is it involves a steering comittee and endless groups arguing over SSI s etc.All funding permitting too:doh
Anyway dont hold your breath on the mendy mendy approach for now.
Checkout "PLANWEB" see if that makes any sense to you boffin types. I've tried but the officious sods reckon we're nuclear fall out so I'm not going there again