More than nine miles of public rights of way have been created in the Lake District

More than a dozen new rights of way have been set up in the Lake District thanks to agreements between the national park authority and landowners.

A partnership project between the National Trust and the national park has resulted in a new rights of way being secured on 11 new footpaths.

Two new bridleways have also been agreed and three footpaths upgraded to bridleway status, meaning cyclists and mountain bikers can lawfully use them.

The authority said there has been informal access along many of these paths for some time, but the project will convert this to formally recognised public access which will ensure that they are public rights of way in perpetuity.

The agreement will also sort out who is responsible for them in the long term, and it will mean that the paths are shown on Ordnance Survey maps.

The new footpaths total more than 10km (six miles), with the two new bridleways measuring about 800m and the upgraded footpaths now offering 5km (three miles) of bridleway.

Three of the routes run across privately owned land as well as National Trust land.

The national park’s countryside access adviser Nick Thorne said he was: “Very pleased that we have been able to work in partnership with the National Trust and other private landowners to bring about this long-term benefit to the public, and I would like to thank them for their support and agreement.”

Andrew Thompson, the National Trust’s estates manager added: “The successful collaboration between the trust and the national park on this footpath project bodes well for future.

“This particular exercise has shown that, by taking a flexible approach, regarding the right to make use of permissive paths, both landowners and the public can determine whether a route works for all parties concerned before it becomes dedicated.

“We hope locals and visitors to the Lake District will enjoy making use of these new rights of way”.

Over the next few months the national park’s field team will be erecting new fingerposts on the paths and installing new gates and surfacing to make the paths fully usable to all.

“We are now working with the trust on a further twelve agreements as part of this process, and also hope to progress three or four individual agreements with them under the Go Lakes Travel project,” Mr Thorne added.