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Councils should have more powers to purchase land for cycling and walking routes, even if landowners do not give consent, according to a Liberal Democrat MP who has tabled an amendment to the government’s Planning and Infrastructure bill.
Freddie van Mierlo told the Oxford Mail of his desire to see councils in England be able to override landowners when it comes to purchasing land for active travel projects.
Compulsory purchase orders are already in use for other projects, such as for new roads or buildings, if they are deemed to be in the public interest. They enable bodies, such as councils, to acquire land without the consent of the owner, the idea being to support development, regeneration and infrastructure projects that will benefit the public and avoid them being held up by a landowner.
However, it has not been established whether the legal guidance around compulsory purchase orders can be applied to active travel projects, something the Member of Parliament for Henley and Thame, Van Mierlo, says he wants to see formalised via an amendment to the government’s Planning and Infrastructure bill.
His campaign has in part been informed by an Oxfordshire planning issue surrounding a proposed active travel route between Thame and Haddenham (the Thame-Haddenham Greenway) which would connect the towns by an off-road walking and cycling route and has strong support from residents.
Despite this, the scheme has been held up by issues around land ownership. The MP wants to see councils given the ability to buy land without owners’ consent when it’s for an active travel route in the public interest. Councils would be required to show they made “best efforts” to consider alternative route options, although they would not have to be the best or only route to enable them access to buy the land.
> Campaigners call for compulsory purchase to complete missing link on National Cycle Route 46
“The Thame to Haddenham Greenway is exactly the kind of low carbon, high impact project we should be delivering without delay, however one or two landowners can hold up vital infrastructure that the entire community supports,” he said. “This amendment gives councils the legal clarity they need to act.”
Oxford City Council councillor Emily Kerr, who also represents the Green Party at the county council, expressed support for the proposed amendment, arguing active travel schemes “should be treated in the same way as building new roads” and “councils should have the same powers to deliver them”.
23 thoughts on “Councils would be able to buy land for cycling routes without owners’ consent under MP’s new proposal”
This sounds like a good idea.
This sounds like a good idea. And at the same time, we should be asking why so many existing trunk roads, where either National Highways or the local authority own the large grass verges, do not already accommodate walking and cycling routes.
For example, the A34 Pendleton Way near Wilmslow. Or the A56 Dunham Road near Bowdon, which actually has a pavement buried under decades of soil and plant life, and which the local authority won’t restore.
On “re-use” – that looks to
On “re-use” – that looks to be potential very “low hanging fruit” as it probably a) already belongs to the public b) will need some work but “already built” c) some was in fact built as cycle infra! See Carlton Reid’s work on the history of this, which he’s taken further into efforts to recover / restore to use some of this. (Some they’ve submitted to the DfT – info about the report here – what that’s worth. Also noting that it always had limitations around junction design, which is also the most important but hardest part of modern cycle provision).
chrisonabike wrote:
because there’s always money for ‘new’ things, and never money to maintain existing things – infrastructure, population, employees, facilities.
preexisting things are invisible and irrelevant. only new things get noticed.
the infamous grouse wrote:
preexisting things are invisible and irrelevant. only new things get noticed.— the infamous grouse
Absolutely. Ultimately that’s humans – far easier to get and keep our attention with the “new”. I’ve observed this many times in different areas of life.
And this is despite the fact that in practice – even in the wildly spending throwaway culture of the “West” – there is still an lot of economic activity in “maintain and mend”…
I think this is one of the reasons it’s so hard to restore cycling / increase cycling levels. It’s seen as an activity we already collectively threw in the bin. So zero public appeal and likely no money to be made from trying to get it going again. (Also a reason for “why ebikes” – those definitely get a shorter planned obsolescence – one major economic attraction of higher-level tech – and have expensive proprietary components – batteries – so you can get money reselling to people).
the infamous grouse wrote:
Photo opportunity politics. There’s a growing breed of politicians who judge projects according to whether or not there is a photo opportunity, and who plan projects to maximise the photo opportunity, even when it’s blatently obvious that they are wasting resources on something that won’t be half as effective as the boring thing.
Accessibility for all wrote:
There’s a lot of literature about how the grass verges alongside roads are some of our larger areas of natural habitat.
“decades of soil and plant life” becomes a roadside meadow (albeit one with a bit more litter from McDonalds).
There are a lot of these areas actually protected as Local Nature Reserves.
That two metres trip of land
That two metres trip of land that is mentioned above won’t be the end of it. It can spilt a plot of land in half. If fenced it will need maintaining and also access points, which are bound to be inconvient at best to the land owner and will be inadequete. If not fenced it will encourage expansion by users. Far better to just use whats there and stop messing about. Many a pavement could be widened, espcially along major highways that actually see virtually no pedestrian use.
Lots of places that existing
Lots of places that existing pavement is 1.5m wide and just has a kerb to the road. What you would upgrade to would be 2.5-3.0m wide with a 1.0m grass strip between it and the road.
What does that need? The fenceline set back 2m. Quick and easy if you can get the land…..
This would be good.
This would be good. Unfortunately the Planning bill is a dog’s dinner in many respects. I suspect MPs will be more focused on curbing its worst excesses than looking at this amendment.
lesterama wrote:
“Of course you can fill in this chalk stream, Mr Developer; just make sure to put some money in the pot so we can plant some trees at the other end of the country in those cute little plastic cylinders.”
Exactly. Subverting
Exactly. Subverting environmental protections for the generations.
Definitely not! I’m.a small ,
Definitely not! I’m.a small , medium livestock farmer and I luckily have no rights of way on my land.
If people want to sell fi e, but we are not quite yet a marxist state and it should be solely down to the landowners if they want to sell or not.
Compulsory purchase already
Compulsory purchase already exists and has done for a very long time.
This is just about clarifying that it’s available for things that aren’t roads just the same as things that are.
Compulsory purchase has
Compulsory purchase has existed in this country forever. What this proposal does is just add ‘active travel’ to the existing kinds of things like ‘motorised travel’ where compulsory purchase has been allowed.
Stephankernow wrote:
So being told that you would have to relinquish ownership of a two metre wide strip of land with full compensation at the market price would be Marxism? I think you probably need to research political science just a little deeper.
Rendel Harris wrote:
Steady on, you’ll be denouncing him as a kulak next!
Stephankernow wrote:
Honestly, the absolute ludicrousness of posts like this highlight just how poorly the education system has failed in the teaching of politics and civics to generations of children.
Stephankernow wrote:
Come on now folks, let’s not be mean to the diminutive farmer of sheep and pigs. This is clearly a damning indictment of the education quality within the county of Cornwall
As a medium person myself, I
As a medium person myself, I reject the idea that that’s due to levels of education
HS2? Motorways? Heathrow 3rd
HS2? Motorways? Heathrow 3rd runway? and so on. Do these examples make us, in your words a ‘Marxist’ state?
It’s always interesting how
It’s always interesting how people conflate Marxism with Totalitarianism. Marxism was / is a socioeconomic theory, a political philosophy. A ‘totalitarian state’ is probably what you mean. The Fascists in Italy and the communists in Russia were both totalitarian governments – so both ‘the right’ and ‘the left’ have a history of totalitarianism. But using a CPO to build a cycle line is not totalitarianism. Or Marxist.
Two thoughts on this:
Two thoughts on this:
1. Are we not hated enough? People don’t see the “walk, wheel, scoot’ bit of active travel. They just see the cycle bit, and from there, the bacon starts cooking.
2. Who is going to maintain it? You can’t expect the farmer to cut the bushes etc, not after forcing him to sell the land.
I’d like to see more active travel routes – there’s certainly tracks around here that could take the strain off the local A roads between major towns and cities.
But I’d rather ride them knowing that there isn’t 2000 tonnes of rotting pigs shit piled next to the active way, gently weeping liquid crap over the surface.
If it has been CPOed it will
If it has been CPOed it will be upto whoever instigated the CPO (LA, HWA, etc.) to maintain it. (Existing) Rights of Way across property are the landowners responsibility.