Core Paths Review Process
The review of our Core Paths Plan has been a year long process between late 2017 through to 2018.
To begin this process, an informal review was undertaken by the Local Access Forum to scope out any issues in the current Core Paths network and gather evidence to help inform the appropriate next steps. A meeting of the Local Access Forum in December 2017 unanimously agreed that a full review was required.
Also at this meeting, the Local Access Forum agreed that the criteria and scoring system developed by the National Park Authority and used during the 2010 Core Path Plan process remained robust and fit for purpose for this review. Using this system, a path is scored between 0-6 (0= Poor, 6=Excellent) against a set of 10 criteria to determine whether the path should have Core Path status. These criteria are whether the path in question:
- Is identified by the community as a priority
- Provides for a specific recreational use, as a primary use
- Provides enjoyment of the Parks special qualities
- Promoted for visitors and tourism linked activity and contributes to economic linked benefits
- Provides useable links with the public transport network
- Provides a functional route/link
- Provides a link (or part of a link), between settlements including cross boundary
- Provides a short route option close to or within settlements or visitor hubs/destinations
- Forms a key link (or part of) to a wider network of paths/routes or strategic longer distance routes
- Balances landowners interests with exercising access rights
In Spring 2018, key partners were asked to feed into the review by providing early comments on the sufficiency of the Core Paths network and highlighting suggestions for proposed additions, deletions or realignments to the Plan in line with the scoring criteria.
Using these comments and internal scoring of the paths, the National Park Authority Access & Recreation team has developed a list of potential updates to the existing Core Paths network which we consulted on between 23rd November 2018 to 26th April 2019. We are now considering the responses to this consultation.