Examination of Witness (Questions 80-100)
MR PAUL
JOHNSON
4 JUNE 2008
Q80 Mr Williams: It seems to me that
if a land owner is using his land for something that is completely
lawful but not necessarily conducive to safety and people having
access, like shooting, like archery, where are the issues there?
The land owner, surely, can use his land for those purposes.
Mr Johnson: Yes, of course. A
direct read-across from the CROW regime where a lot of those uses
take place and continue to take place on that land, and that is
one of the reasons why you have a directions regime to accommodate
those uses. One of the things which we developed in implementing
the CROW regime was this concept of an outline direction, a bit
like an outline planning permission. You get the agreement upfront
that there is a necessity to close for certain reasons, and you
then kind of call off those restrictions on particular days when
that use is taking place. By and large that seems to work very
well, and we would be looking to do the same sort of thing here.
Clearly, we would need to try, so far as possible, to align the
trail in such a way that that kind of exclusion would not affect
the land over which the trail passed, so that is part of the reason
why we need to have those early conversations to see what kind
of land owner sensitivities there might be that might affect the
alignment of the trail.
Q81 Mr Williams: The line changes
ownership, does it not, and owners have different expectations
of what they might want to do on that land. Are you saying that
these things could alter and be changed?
Mr Johnson: Yes, very much so.
It is a cardinal principle of the whole approach really, firstly
that the alignment decisions could change in relation to changing
circumstances and, secondly, that if a new land use cuts in, or
whatever, obviously the directions regime has got to be responsive
to that if it is necessary to keep people out for some reason.
Q82 Mr Drew: I did cut across you
in terms of the public liability. There is Natural England and
Defra as guardians of the state. It looks very minimalist. Is
this inevitable because clearly no-one really wants to pick up
some of the problems? Let us look at a hypothetical. Let us say
that people decided on a rather nice coastal path that they would
do some rock climbing and they damaged the coastal path and someone
is coming along and falls down where this has been damaged. Who
takes responsibility? They are hardly acts of God; they are acts
of irresponsibility.
Mr Johnson: I think that is a
good example. Another good example would be someone walking along
the top of the cliff who has a terrible accident and falls to
their death. These things, as you know, do occasionally happen,
tragically, and it is reasonable to suppose that they will continue
to happen from time to time. Our take on this, and this, in effect,
has gone into the Bill, is that it would be a bit of a nonsense
if, although the occupier could not be sued because those things
happened, Natural England or the access authority could, for example,
because we had included the cliff top or the cliff face within
the access arrangements, someone could sue us on the grounds that
it was too dangerous, that would make a bit of a nonsense of the
whole thing, because the underlying premise for this project is
that everyone knows that in parts the coast is dangerous, everyone
needs to respect that, but it is right and proper that people
should have the freedom to explore and to enjoy it and to apply
their own levels of risk to particular sections of coast. Of course,
rock climbers are the classic example of that because some really
do like to put themselves at fairly extreme risk and it is understood
with the land manager that, if they have a terrible accident,
they have accepted responsibility. In effect, what the Bill tries
to do is to give effect to that principle. So, just looking slightly
at the detail, the principles are, first of all, that Natural
England or the access authority will not owe a duty of care to
the public for the way in which it proposes the trail. Secondly,
in relation to the extent to which we do or do not put up warning
notices about hazards and so on, again there is that kind of protection
given against being sued on the basis that there should have been
something saying how dangerous this is. In practice what we will
try and do, through the access authority, is to put up notices
where there is very extreme danger that no-one could have foreseen,
or whatever, but we really cannot get into the business of having
millions of notices saying, "Beware: cliff edge". It
is not how we should be going with this at all. I think it is
fair to say that that kind of policy is consistent with the sort
of approach the House of Lords has been applying in case law over
recent years to that kind of issue.
Q83 Mr Drew: What are relations like
with the MoD?
Mr Johnson: Very cordial.
Q84 Mr Drew: I thought you said very
cool.
Mr Johnson: We were out on site
with them last week.
Q85 Mr Drew: That is a classic area
where you can see some conflict in practicalities of where people
go, because that is a problem at the moment.
Mr Johnson: Yes. We are obviously
dealing very closely with Defence Estates, as are Defra, as you
would expect. The situation is slightly different, in the sense
that wherever defence by-laws cover land the proposal is that
the land should be exempted from these rights, as it is under
CROW. Secondly, they will have direction making powers comparable
to those that Natural England will have for other purposes. So
that if land is not covered by by-laws but there does need to
be an exclusion or restriction to keep people safe, or whatever,
then they will have the power to put those in place. I think it
is fair to say that all the necessary protections will remain
in place to avoid people suffering as a result of military activity,
but very helpfully, in our view, Defence Estates have made it
clear that they are willing and happy to work positively with
us during the alignment process to try and find a way through
that kind of land wherever possible so that the estate itself
does not represent a blockage to continuity.
Q86 Paddy Tipping: A quick couple
of points and then I will move to costs. We talked about appeals
under CROW. Could you dig out for us the number of appeals that
took place, because my recollection was it was a very small number
of hearings?
Mr Johnson: Yes, it was.
Q87 Paddy Tipping: Secondly, Mr Williams
mentioned the Stephen Crabb Private Members Bill. It may be out
of scope at the moment, but this is only a draft Bill, and it
will be possible to change the long title of the Bill if the Government
were so minded. That clearly is right?
Mr Johnson: That really is something
you need to ask the Minister, but, yes, we would be very happy
to do dig those statistics out.
Q88 Paddy Tipping: Turning to the
main issue, which is about cost, who is going to pay to put the
coastal path in and, secondly, probably more importantly, who
is going to maintain it and pick up the cost of that?
Mr Johnson: The cost of the works
such as are necessary to give effect to access—things like
steps, bridges, drainage, and stuff like that—will be picked
up by Natural England in the implementation phase. The associated
costs of maintenance will be met during that phase by Natural
England. In the business as usual phase from, as it were, year
11 onwards, I am sure we will make a contribution to maintenance
and we will be looking to others to do the same.
Q89 Paddy Tipping: Am I right in
thinking that the maintenance of paths generally is the land owner's
responsibility and the maintenance of stiles is the local authority's
responsibility? Is that a model that you would see into the future?
Mr Johnson: When you say maintenance
of paths is the land owner's responsibility—
Q90 Paddy Tipping: For the surface.
Mr Johnson:—Effectively
what happens is that, if your crops are going to infringe on the
right way, or whatever, then you have got to keep them clear,
but the maintenance of the surface is with the highway authority.
If you like, that is the model here. and the access authority
keeps the route open and does the necessary repairs to infrastructure,
and so on. What we are saying is that maintenance will be an element
of the five million pounds during the ten years, and from year
11 onwards we will make a contribution to maintenance.
Q91 Paddy Tipping: Finally, you say
that this is going to cost £50 million. How have you got
to that figure?
Mr Johnson: We have looked very
carefully at the sorts of costs that are going to be involved
in putting in place project officers in local authorities and
the different types of establishment works, and we have drawn
on existing experience from national trails and other models to
form those kind of unit costs, and so on, and all the other expenses
that you would expect us to have looked at, and that was how the
figures came out. In a very real sense you could spend however
much you wanted to on a project like this. It would soak up any
finite amount of money that was applied to it, but our view is
that we can do a pretty good job for the budget that has been
allocated. We will continue to refine those estimates, and we
are doing some further work around the country in terms of how
much existing access there is to try and make sure that they are
realistic, but so far as we can tell that is the right order of
magnitude.
Q92 Paddy Tipping: If you want to
submit an environmental enhancement or some landscape change,
that would be on top of the budget.
Mr Johnson: I think there is an
issue there, obviously. I think it would be pretty ambitious to
expect to do that on the same budget. Clearly the combined cost
of agreements like that can be quite high, and, of course, one
of the difficulties is in competing priorities for the agri-environment
budget. Obviously, what we would like to see is an accelerated
modulation process so that the size of that budget increases and
can be used for this kind of purpose. The coast seems an excellent
place to pilot those new kind of new approaches.
Q93 Paddy Tipping: You have only
got £50 million. You have got a reducing budget, have you
not?
Mr Johnson: That is our commitment
at the moment. Clearly, all these commitments are obviously subject
to having acceptable appropriate settlements year on year, but
our current expectation is that we will be able to fund to that
tune.
Q94 David Lepper: A final question
on the costs. I think the original estimate for implementing the
CROW Act was 28 million, and the final cost of implementation
was 69 million. So you are fairly confident about your 50 million
estimate in this case.
Mr Johnson: As I say, we feel
at the moment that it is about right. We are continuing to look
at the factors and if it needs refining we will refine it, but
we are reasonably confident. There is a reason for that, which
is that the way in which the whole scheme of this project is designed
is to be scalable so that we can make such intervention as is
necessary on particular sections of coast and to some extent at
whatever pace can be afforded. So, although we talk about ten
years, if a situation were to arise where actually it needed to
take 12 years, or whatever, then the legislation could accommodate
that. The difficulty in cost terms with CROW—by the way,
I think the CROW thing actually represents quite good value for
money if you take it acre by acre—
Q95 David Lepper: I would not disagree
with you on that.
Mr Johnson:—But the difficulty
in cost terms with CROW was simply that once you press the green
button, there is nothing you can do about the cost of it because
you have got to map every piece of those land types, you have
got to go through a three-stage mapping process, you have got
to send all the copies out that are dictated in the regulations,
you have got to go to inquiries or hearings, and so on, on appeal,
and you have got to operate the application-based restriction
system, whereas we are hoping to put in place a lot of the restrictions
up front without the need for an application system. So with CROW
there is a lot of inbuilt red-tape, which has a reason but which
has its cost. As I said earlier, the practical effect of that
is to take money that could be spent on the ground and spend it
on systems.
Q96 Mr Williams: As I understand
it, since the introduction of CROW visits to the countryside have
reduced.
Mr Johnson: I do not think it
was a causal effect.
Q97 Mr Williams: No, but I understand
that also visits to the coast are increasing. Are we sure that
actually what we think is a good thing is what the public think
is a good thing? Do they want this complete coastal access or
would they prefer something a bit smaller and a bit safer and
a bit less risky?
Mr Johnson: We have had very strong,
positive feedback about the project. It is the stuff that does
not get in the newspapers. It is, I would say, a tremendously
popular project, and part of the reason for that is what I said
at the outset, which is just the sheer scale of coastal visiting
which knocks everything else out really. It is a fantastically
popular thing to do. There may be some trend of a slight reduction
in visitor numbers, but in the great scheme of things there are
still a whole lot of people who visit the countryside and a huge
amount of people who visit the coast and enjoy it, and the message
we get is that they really want that certainty and confidence
as they go round the coast.
Q98 Mr Drew: I was with representatives
of the Kennel Club earlier today and they were desperate to know
that people will have the right to roam their dogs, as opposed
to roam themselves, on the coast. Is this much of an issue, or
can people be very optimistic that dog walking at the coast is
going to be a very healthy exercise for everyone to undertake?
Mr Johnson: Dogs are kind of the
access issue in a way, because when people talk about problems
with access, 99% of the time they are talking about problems with
dogs. Obviously, the Kennel Club, no doubt, appreciate that that
is a factor in all of this. The starting point we have taken is
that it would be inappropriate on the coast to say that on every
stretch all around the coast of England dogs must be on leads
for all or part of the year. We think that is a step too far.
Indeed, I think if one were to apply that kind of approach, essentially
what you would end up with is disobedience from people who would
say, "I cannot see any reason for this and I am just going
to let my dog run." So our philosophy on this is by applying
a needs-based approach to the type of dog control or even dog
exclusion that might be necessary on a particular section, we
can get people to take it more seriously. By having the sort of
sign saying, "During the lambing season please keep your
dog on a lead", or whatever it is, we can significantly increase
the prospects of adherence, but the driving force behind the policy,
if you like, is to ensure that people who like walking their dog
on the coast, and, of course, there are tens of thousands of them,
are not necessarily prevented from doing that and from the dog
enjoying the experience as well as the human.
Mr Drew: The final one is a quiz question.
I see one of the exceptions was race courses. Can you tell me
a race course that is actually on the coast? Shall we leave that
with you as a quiz question?
Mr Gray: It is the other way round. It
is an exception in the CROW Act, it is not an exception in this.
Q99 Mr Drew: Anyway, whichever way
it is, it would be interesting to know, is there such a thing
as a race course where the horses race round the coastal path?
Mr Johnson: We do not think it
will be a big issue!
Q100 Mr Drew: Can I thank you for
appearing before us this afternoon. I think you made one commitment
to Paddy that you were going to come up with the figures for the
number of appeals that there were under the CROW Act. We have
given you a hard grilling. No doubt the Minister will be looking
forward eagerly to being given an even harder grilling, but can
I thank you for your time, Mr Johnson. Our good wishes go to Helen,
but thank you for appearing before us. Whatever you have said
cannot be unsaid, you may want to qualify things in due course
of time, but it has been a very interesting session. Thank you
for that.
Mr Johnson: Thank you, Mr Drew.
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