Golf course footpath

New Lammas Lands Defence Committee

From: Katy Andrews
Sent: Wed 27/07/11 4:35 PM

Subject: Fwd: Footpaths across Leyton Marsh golf course by Essex Filter Beds

Dear all,

Attached is a map as put up on Leyton Marshes by the LVRPA last year (March 2010).

NLLDC decided that, as we hadn't objected to the alteration of the official existing footpath route - as proposed many years ago by the Park Authority when they were planning the Waterworks Visitors' Centre - it would be a bit odd to object now to the creation of what appeared to be a new, additional footpath following that route, which would not apparently be a diversion but would constitute an official alternative path. Ron Binns of the Pedestrian Association successfully thwarted the original attempt to move the footpath; and so the path officially continues northwards, as today, across the golf course and along the Flood Relief Channel to the west of the Waterworks Visitors Centre.

In practice, however, the Park have actually illegally stopped up the original course of the official footpath (as shown on the draft Definitive Map, which has not yet been ratified) and in fact most people heading towards Lea Bridge Road already use the route that is shown as "Footpath 289" on the attached map.

If this were the whole story, I doubt NLLDC would now be making a fuss, but we have now heard bits and pieces from four various sources - including a local councillor and two borough officers - that lead us to believe that the RPA are losing money on the Golf Course and want to close it down, to be replaced with something more lucrative, almost certainly to include camping and possibly a caravan site. This would be a long-term use.

Initially, the idea - as espoused by the Park Authority at Leyton & Walthamstow Marshes Users' Forum meetings - is merely to have a temporary campsite on the golf course land for the duration of the Olympic Games. This, at least, is what people attending the Users' Forum meetings are told. Unfortunately, those attending often know more about what is going on than the junior staff (usually Rangers involved in day-to-day land and biodiversity management issues) with whom we generally meet - and in this instance we have reason to think that this is far from being the whole story.

Any Olympic-related or temporary residential use would, of course, have to involve security fencing around it and thus no access to the general public - this could be achieved by the temporary diversion of the existing footpath onto the route of the proposed "footpath 289".

It would also mean the stopping up of the Permissive Right of Way to the south of the Essex Filter Beds that connects to the Friends (red) Bridge across the tidal River Lea to Hackney Marshes.

That path and the bridge are part of the quiet route for cyclists that connects Leyton, via Marsh Lane and the railway footbridge that we fought hard to save several years ago, to Hackney and the London towpath network that is accessed by the Hackney Cut. The Permissive ROW is accessed from the footbridge by a newly-completed footpath across the middle of the golf-course from the Lea Valley Railway Line and Orient Way footbridge to the Friends Bridge. That footpath is presently a "de facto" path, it is neither a permissive ROW nor an official right of way, but it IS shown on the unadopted definitive map and the route has been in use since the Friends Bridge was opened so a case could be made that a right of way has in fact been established here through common usage over time.

The Friends Bridge is the only off-road crossing point over the River Lea between Ruckholt Road and Lea Bridge Road (and don't forget Ruckholt Road will be closed to all traffic but the so-called "Olympic Family" and security/emergency vehicles during the Games next year!) and so of great importance to pedestrians and cyclists (and the many cross-country runners from the Eton Manor Athletics Club, based at Marsh Lane). The owners of the Permissive ROW (?Thames Water ?Environment Agency ?Regional Park Authority ??) do not have to give any notice that the path is to be stopped up, nor make provision for an alternative route, and can refuse access for as long as they wish.

For pedestrians and cyclists who currently use that route, this would mean a round journey of approximately a mile longer - down to Lea Bridge Road and westwards to the aqueduct and up the Sustrans Route (itself also a permissive path) between the nature reserve (EFB 2/3) and the operational (EFB 1) filter beds sites. Possibly the RPA are hoping to come out of this smelling like roses by allowing access through the Essex Filter Beds, as several people have been asking for at Users' Group meetings; but in any case that would still add a long and time-consuming detour.

The perceived necessity to provide campsite accommodation for short-term visitors attending the Olympic Games and holidaying in London would bring great pressure to bear on Waltham Forest to give a temporary permission for the existing footpath to be stopped up officially, especially as there would be a simple alternative route if this new Footpath 289 is approved.

Once security fences are put in and the footpath is temporarily diverted (citing the Games as the compelling reason), it will be very difficult to get the fences removed or the path reinstated. Even a temporary campsite would mean that there is no public access to the golf course area, and walkers and cyclists would be forced to walk along the eastern boundary of the site between a security fence on one side and the high brick wall that marks the back of the commercial/industrial workshop and warehousing units at Fairways Business Centre on the east. NLLDC's great worry now, of course, is that this is merely the first step in permanently removing (or diverting onto the new path) the existing path , to make it easier for the Regional Park to fence off the whole of this area for other purposes, compatible with the 1966 LV Regional Park Act but not open to the general public (as has happened at the Riding Centre on Porter's Field, where the Park Authority took and summarily enclosed an area on Walthamstow Marshes, denying the public any access (and have now fenced it off with barbed wire and electrified fencing).

The Regional Park operates a number of campsites and caravan parks further to the north (in areas where there is more open space generally, however) and is obviously looking for a local replacement for the campsite lost at Bully Point, just over the Newham border.

Any information you can add to this would be very gratefully received. If John Gilbert still has the Ramblers' Association or OSS booklets about rights of way or if David Boote has copies of these, please would you let me know asap!

Katy.