PROW NEWS – SEPTEMBER UPDATES
- Langdon & St Margaret’s parishes – creation of new restricted byway ER307 (of questionable practical use) now confirmed
A Hugh Craddock claim which is unfortunately likely to be of little practical use for most people. The new route will run from Lucerne Lane in Martin at GR 340 470 for ¾ mile east-south-eastwards, passing under the railway. The problem is that it will finally emerge onto the main Dover-Deal A258 at GR 351 467, a little way west of Oxney Bottom. This is a relatively narrow, very busy road with no footways, and it is a long way to the next nearest right of way. I can’t imagine any walker or horse rider feeling at all comfortable in walking/riding any significant distance along this road.
- Urban Margate – creation of a new short footpath off Margate High Street confirmed
This confirmed order has created a new PROW (TMX45) along the short 30 yard footpath from the lower High Street (the sea end) at GR 353 710, eastwards to the Market Street car park. It seems to have been something of an issue locally, and was a cause fought for by the late Gordon Sencicle on behalf of the Open Spaces Society.
- Woodnesborough parish – order now made to create a new bridleway (EE504), west of the road from the village south towards Nonington
Another Hugh Craddock claim of a bridleway, running two-thirds of a mile south-westwards from the junction of the Eastry-Staple road and Ringlemere Lane at GR 296 567, to the 90 degree bend in Sandwich Road west of Hammill at GR 290 559.
The northern 55% of EE504 is already an established track. The route as a whole would provide useful potential connections northwards to Coombe Lane, Ash, and Marshborough.
Development proposals affecting PROW:
Most news this month has not been of paths which will be directly affected by new houses built across their actual route, but of paths that will now run along the boundary of a new development. Not disastrous, and with a green “buffer” in most cases, but any rural “feel” is diminished. Some cases in point:
- Wingham, Approved on 21 August by Dover DC are three new houses just east of Preston Hill, (planning ref. 25/00429) where footpath EE19 will adjoin the northern boundary of the development. This in a village where 17 new homes north of Gobery Hill (off the nearby A257 to Ash but not affecting a PROW) were approved as recently as July.
- Sellindge, where an application (ref. 25/1394/FH) has in the last month been made for 17 new houses just beyond The Mount, Barrow Hill, south of the main village. Bridleway HE271A would run along the SE boundary. But this is just a small addition to the series of applications affecting Sellindge, involving literally hundreds of houses both north and south of the A20.
- Eastry. Here an application has just been submitted for 100 new houses to the west of Lower Street, as you come into the village from the south (ref.25/00934). Although these will not interfere with the line of footpath EE256 (from Lower Street to Mill Lane) they could be very visible on the falling ground just to the south. And of course, immediately to the north of EE256, the housing on the site of the former Eastry Hospital is nearing completion. The extent to which the nature of the path is changed, will depend on how much can be preserved of the “green tunnel” in which the majority of the route is currently contained.
As always, if you would like more details about any of the issues mentioned above, or any others for that matter, please contact Roger King on 07779 533 583, or e-mail roger.rambler89@outlook.com
