Two campaigning groups have forced an authority to abandon plans to close a right-of-way.
Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council wanted to shut the town’s historic Stringer Street Steps, but was ordered this week by a judge to come up with a plan to keep the route open. The Ramblers’ Association (RA) has also received £30,000 damages following the case, which it brought with the Open Spaces Society against the council and the Nelson Tool Company.
Ramblers' Association chairman Kate Ashbrook
It was argued by the council in 2002 that the steps could be closed because they were not needed for public use. However, District Judge Alan Berg agreed with local residents and walkers’ groups that the public had been prevented from using the steps because the council failed to maintain them as it should have.
He said the authority was guilty of a combination of ineptitude and indifference. Handing down his judgement in magistrates court, Judge Berg said: “The council cannot gain an advantage as a result of their own wrongdoing and rely on what flows from that wrongdoing to show an absence of use by members of the public, and because of that, assert that the route is therefore unnecessary.”
Judge Berg said the council was trying to have its cake and eat it. Stockport council must now appear before him in March next year with a plan for reinstating the steps.
80 locals had signed a petition in favour of keeping open the steps.
Kate Ashbrook, chairman of the Ramblers’ Association and general secretary of the Open Spaces Society, said: “The Stringer Street Steps battle reflected an all too common tendency of local councils to stifle grassroots opposition to unpopular path closures by pursuing cases through the costly and intimidating magistrates court.
“District Judge Berg’s decision to retain Stringer Street Steps as a public highway upholds community wellbeing and access rights over the interests of private landowners.
“Stockport council has incurred a heavy financial penalty for using the magistrates court in pursuing this case. This signals to councils nationwide that they must no longer use the courts to bypass democratic procedures.”
Two months ago, grough reported how the RA was landed with a £19,800 bill after it lost a case at Witney Magistrates Court, brought by car giants BMW and Oxfordshire County Council. The parties succeeded in closing a bridleway through its Cowley plant, where the MINI is made. At the time, the RA’s footpath team head Adrian Morris called the magistrates court procedure outmoded, and designed to frustrate residents’ objections.
Dave Harris
18 December 2007This is just a pure waste of money for stockport council. The RA are here to protect our paths and keep them open for the everyday person to use. The outcome of this court battle should have been just common sense. Now the money that the council have lost could have been used locally, for the good of the community. This to me stinks of someone trying to save money and justify their job.
Edgar Ernstbrunner
21 December 2007In fact, Stockport Council should recover the money from the applicant (Nelson Tool Company), as the original decision to make the Order (back in December 2003) was conditional on the applicant paying all the Council's expenses. Total costs are in fact over £ 50,000, as the Council had previously also had costs awarded against them when the RA won their Crown Court appeal against the original Magistrates' Court decision. Oddly enough, no attempt has as yet been made, as far as we know, to recover ANY costs from Nelson Tool Company.
A Clarke
18 September 2009In 1848 Henry Marsland left all his estate to the people of Stockport in perpuity, as he built the steps on Stringer street, these are included, and S.M.B.C. are obliged to maintain them
according to his wishes, unless they want to hand his lands back to his heirs.