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[Press Release: October 11th, 2005] Council must list Rights of Way in its County Development PlanFollowing a recent meeting of Wicklow County Council, Green Party councillor, Deirdre de Burca, has called on the council to include a comprehensive list of public rights of way in its County Development Plan 2004-2010. Cllr de Burca made this proposal as councillors considered a proposed Variation to the County Development Plan that would have seen 14 "Access Routes" or "Permissive Routes" being listed in the Plan."The whole issue of public rights of way first reared its head last year when councillors were lobbied by landowners to remove 14 public rights of way and 33 Access Routes from its Draft County Development Plan" says de Burca. "We agreed to refer the issue to an Interim Committee chaired by Councillor Pat Vance and we asked that the committee would report back to the full council with recommendations by June of this year. The committee has done this and has recommended that 14 Access or Permissive Routes be adopted." Cllr de Burca claims that she was very unhappy with these recommendations as they did not deal with the issue of protecting and listing public rights of way in the county. "The proposals made by the Interim Committee were purely a whitewash" she says. "All of the routes proposed were largely across state or semi-state land on which the public already had the right of access. Therefore these proposed new routes were giving nothing new to the public but in some cases were actually restricting their existing rights of access." The Green councillor also claims that if the council had adopted the Access Routes proposed by the Interim Committee and if it had listed them in its County Development Plan, it would effectively have downgraded what she claims are now public rights of way. "Public rights of way exist because of tradition and long usage" says de Burca. "Members of the public have a legal entitlement to have access to them at all times. In contrast, Access Routes are agreed with landowners and exist at the landowner’s discretion. A landowner can close off access to these routes when he or she chooses". The Green Party councillor submitted two motions at the council meeting. The first motion proposed that three public rights of way which are relatively uncontroversial, including the Bray to Greystones Cliff Path, Bray Head and the Kilcoole Mass Path, be listed in the County Development Plan immediately. Her second motion proposed that the Interim Committee resume its examination of possible public rights of way in County Wicklow. She proposed that the committee report back to the full council with a draft list of these rights of way within a six month period. She also proposed that it complete the business of investigating and establishing these rights of way within an eighteen month period and that it would then include a list of these public rights of way in the County Development Plan by means of a Variation. "There is a strong demand from members of the public to have rights of way in the county protected and to prevent them from being privatised or closed off to public access" says de Burca. "This is essential if we want to promote tourism in Wicklow as well as providing recreational opportunities for its residents".
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