Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1760
- 1779)
1760. MR SUGGETT: Thank you very much.
I have no questions.
Cross-examined by MS
LIEVEN
1761. MS LIEVEN: Can I start with one
or two questions? Can we put up 023 because it is a map rather
than your hand-drawn sketch?[11]
It is showing very much the same thing. I just want to ask you
a couple of questions about people walking from Richings Park
up to --- I think Iver is up here (indicating); is that right?
(Mrs Collins) Yes.
1762. Let us take schoolchildren, if they wanted
to walk to Iver. At the moment from this location the logical
thing to do would be to go across Thorney Lane Bridge, where I
think there is a footbridge, is there not?
(Mrs Collins) Yes.
1763. So they are completely segregated from
the traffic at Thorney Lane Bridge, are they not?
(Mrs Collins) Yes.
1764. And then they either presumably continue
up the road, but is there a pavement all the way up the road—
(Mrs Collins) There is a pavement.
1765.— or, if they were going to walk
by the non-road route, then on our alternative they would divert
west there and walk to the south of the Bison plant, yes?
(Mrs Collins) Yes.
1766. It is pretty unlikely that anybody who
was walking to Iver for the purposes of getting to Iver rather
than a recreational walk across a field would divert back from
Richings Park along—I think this is North Park, is it not?
(Mrs Collins) Yes.
1767. And then up the field. Even at the present
time that would be a pretty big diversion in order to get to Iver.
(Mrs Collins) I think it would depend which bit of Richings
Park you lived in because there is a lot of Richings Park below
the map. Old Slade Lane and The Poynings comes off the map at
the bottom here and there are more developments going in on the
southern side of North Park.
1768. But one of the points you made in your
petition is that our proposal is going to make life more difficult
for schoolchildren trying to walk to Iver. First of all, for the
bulk of Richings Park up here, if they were trying to get to school
they would be pretty unlikely to come back this way and up here.
It would be a diversion for them, would it not?
(Mrs Collins) At the moment it might be but if the Safe Route
to School had something like the walking bus and all the parents
parked in the United Reform Church car park, which is quite near
Dog Kennel Bridge, there would be a place then to walk children
across the fields in a walking bus. It is just an option. I am
not saying it will ever happen but it could be an option.
1769. I think you may have touched on my second
point already, which is that it is not going to be a wildly attractive
walk at the moment for children to walk to school across a couple
of fields and round the side of the industrial estate, is it?
(Mrs Collins) I think it would be more attractive than walking
on the road. When you walk past the industrial estate you can
barely see it. I walked there on Saturday myself just to be absolutely
certain, and at this time of the year with very few leaves on
the trees it is fairly well hidden.
1770. In terms of it being better than walking
along the road, for these people who live in the vast majority
of Richings Park it would be better for them in order to get into
Iver for there to be a footpath along the north side of the railway,
would it not, because it would be quicker from here to go over
Thorney Lane Bridge like that rather than have to divert all the
way back round—
(Mrs Collins) It would be even quicker to take the blue route.
1771. Yes, but between what is on the table
in the Bill, which is the green route, and the existing route
it would be quicker to go by the new route in the Bill, would
it not?
(Mrs Collins) It depends whether you are going for a walk
for pleasure or whether you are going for quickness. There are
two reasons for walking and they are, one, to get from A to B
in a certain time, and the other is for pleasure, and certainly
the more pleasurable one is the existing one rather than walking
alongside the road between Bisons and the railway.
1772. MS LIEVEN: Thank you very much.
1773. MR SUGGETT: I have no re-examination,
thank you, my Lords.
Examined by THE
COMMITTEE
1774. LORD YOUNG OF NORWOOD GREEN: I
instinctively want to sympathise and do something but I am puzzled
in a way. It does not look like at the moment it is a very well
used route, does it?
(Mrs Collins) I do
not know that any footpath would be a very well used route at
the moment. When I walked along it on Saturday the path was well
trodden. The grass was muddy and flat where people had been walking.
I bumped into two people, I think, on the walk. I do not know
how well used any other path would be. I am not a great walker
myself.
1775. I walk quite a lot and I know paths that
are used and the ones that are not so used, and if you look at
the photographic evidence it does not look particularly well used.
If it was well used I am a bit puzzled why nobody sought to establish
in the past a right of way. If the parish council valued it as
a local amenity, every now and then you survey rights of way and
you have to because there are all sorts of groups and other people
who for various reasons seem to deny rights of way, so I am a
bit puzzled about why you did not seek to establish a right of
way previously, or there is no record of it.
(Mrs Collins) I think if you ask the same
question to Mr Graham, who is coming after me, you will get a
more detailed answer because he knows more about the historical
side than I do, but I understand that in the 1950s the parish
council did try to get this done and there is a reference in his
statement to in 1992 the county council saying that there was
a lot of upheaval in the parish because of what was happening
over Dog Kennel Bridge then and Mr Graham is a member of the Iver
and District Countryside Association and the parish council relies
heavily on that group and supports that group in looking after
all the footpaths in the area, so if that group objected then
the parish council would have supported them, and that group did
object.
1776. CHAIRMAN: Mrs Collins, the legislation
has been in place since 1949 and it has always been possible for
an organisation like the parish council to claim a footpath right
of way (or rights of way) over any particular land. Prior to 1992,
when the notice was put up, did the parish council do anything
to persuade Buckinghamshire County Council to include the bridge
on the definitive map?
(Mrs Collins) As I understand it, in the fifties I think
it was about to go to a judicial review to get it put as a public
footpath.
1777. It would not have gone to judicial review
in those days, it would have been Quarter Sessions.
(Mrs Collins) That is the term, that is right.
1778. Did they do it?
(Mrs Collins) I understand the County Council pulled out.
1779. The County Council decided not to put
it forward as being a footpath.
(Mrs Collins) That is what I understand, but Mr Graham knows
more of the history.
11 Crossrail Ref: P15, Dog Kennel Bridge-Alternative
Footpath Diversions (BUCKCC-10_04-023) Back
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