Fighting a Rights of Way Campaign in Oxford
In this blog I will describe a successful, yet hard fought, urban Rights of Way (RoW) campaign in Oxford between 1986 and 2002 - a campaign that successfully claimed a large network of about five kilometres of footpaths on hospital fields in Headington, a suburb of East Oxford.
Urban RoW claims are much rarer than those in the countryside. The common explanation is that different legal mechanisms are used to create road and path networks in towns and villages. Those in more areas tend to be recorded on a ‘List of Streets’ rather than on a ‘Definitive Map and Statement’. The traditional countryside campaign organisations such as the Ramblers Association (the Ramblers) and the Council to Protect Rural England (CPRE) focus on access to ‘the great outdoors’ where they have earned their reputation. Despite the majority of Britain’s population living in urban settings, where most of the walking occurs, very little has been written - in any discipline - about the designation of urban paths using RoW legislation.
This unusual Oxford RoW campaign, led by the local branches of the CPRE and the Ramblers, demonstrated that whilst most RoW claims are made in the countryside the legislation does apply equally to urban settings. The extraordinary involvement of CPRE and the Ramblers in saving well-loved footpaths in Oxford may be seen as an exception which proves the rule and can be explained by understanding Oxford’s lengthy environmental campaign history.
Image 1. A way marker to claimed Footpath 129 on the land of Churchill Hospital. Photo credit: Sietske Boeles.
The campaign to safeguard these footpaths began in the mid 1980s when it became clear that a large green oasis in Headington, consisting of over a hundred acres, was earmarked for development by the NHS, which had owned the site since nationalisation in 1948. Before that, the land was owned by the private Warneford Asylum which created attractive grounds, including walks along the tree-lined Boundary Brook to comply with the Hospital Board’s vision of creating a ‘hospital set in tranquil rural surroundings of open fields for the wellbeing of their [often well-heeled] patients’. The paths on this uniquely attractive site, wedged in between the growing suburbs of Headington, Cowley and St Clements, had also been used by locals for pleasure and commuting. According to a spokesperson for the Oxford Civic Society, local people had ‘walked these paths daily as far as the memory of the oldest resident’.
Local protests started in 1986 when the first ‘No Rights of Way’ signs went up on hospital land and proposals for housing, medical facilities and a large biomedical research campus were published. Protestors promptly removed the signs and called a public meeting which was well-attended with support from local amenity groups and residents organisations; there was extensive coverage in the Oxford Times.
The protests came mostly from the surrounding council estates, but also from residents groups in wealthier areas, creating a cross-class alliance against the removal of access rights. The main argument was that the hospital fields were surrounded by some of the densest housing in the city, with few amenities for the people living there. However the campaigners soon realised that the development of the site could not be stopped and so they turned their attention to saving its footpath network: they then approached the active local CPRE branch.
Between 1986 and 1994 the CPRE, later joined by the Ramblers, arranged the completion of evidence of use questionnaires to demonstrate that the hospital paths had been established as RoW because they had been freely used over a twenty year period, a legal requirement stipulated by the courts. The Registration Authority, in this case Oxfordshire County Council, evaluated these evidence of use questionnaires and were satisfied that the paths had been used continuously as RoW for the required period. In 1997 the County Council issued a Modification Order to add these paths to the Definitive Map and Statement which is the legal record of public rights of way.
Image 2. Footpaths on hospital land, added to the Definitive Map of Oxford in 2002 : FP 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 122, 123, 129, 130 are marked. Image reproduced by kind permission of Oxfordshire County Council.
Their order was appealed by the NHS and a Public Inquiry followed to determine whether the County’s decision to add the footpaths to the Definitive Map was sound. The appeal was mostly dismissed and in 2002 the claimed footpaths on hospital land were added to the Definitive Map for the City of Oxford. Twenty years later the claimed paths continue to be well-used for recreation and travel and are now also used by those working at, or visiting, the Oxford University Hospital and its Old Road campus, a bio-medical research park with an international reputation.
The collection of evidence of use questionnaires is a laborious process in which local knowledge and expertise is critical. CPRE and the Ramblers were fortunate that they could draw on their large memberships of retired academics and professionals, motivated to protect Oxford’s green cherished spaces. With no shortage in expertise or skills they had people with what might be termed a ‘confident voice’ who had experience in dealing with procedures and processes, and with the ability to navigate complex paperwork, negotiate with senior council officers, keep the press informed, and attend intimidating Public Inquiries.
In Oxford there was a long tradition of protecting beauty and green spaces which explains why there were so many ‘confident voices’ available for this RoW campaign. From the early 20th Century, Town and Gown had worked to protect Oxford’s historic core, its famous ‘dreaming spires’ surrounded by verdant green hills. They had also worked together to protect Oxford’s surrounding green open countryside when it came under threat from rapid industrialisation and urbanisation, mainly due to the growth of the Morris motor industry in Cowley, a suburb of East Oxford. Lucinda Carroll’s blog entry on this website, ‘Tracking and Mapping Oxford’ (December 2022), describes in detail how the building of large council housing estates in pre-war Headington to accommodate workers in the motor industry led to a large expansion of the roads network and a subsequent loss of RoW.
This long-term cross-class alliance to protect Oxford’s perceived beauty against undesirable developments led to the formation of various local amenity groups, such as the University-dominated Oxford Preservation Trust (1928), CPRE Oxfordshire (1931), and the more ‘Town’ oriented Oxford Civic Society (1969). All these organisations promoted the preservation of green spaces with public access. They argued against what John Buchan (statesman, author and founder of CPRE Oxfordshire) once described as ‘the new ugliness’ of the encroaching suburbs due to the rapid growth of industrial East Oxford.
Whilst these well-organised and passionate campaigns were often run by Oxford’s elites, mainly academics, they also engaged many working and middle class people. These campaigns were mostly successful in preserving Oxford’s historic core and green setting, both in the pre- and post-war periods. An example was the one to stop an inner ring-road passing through Christ Church Meadow in the early 1970s. Their victories inspired others to form new groups to preserve Oxford’s green spaces: the dedication of these footpaths in 2002 was soon followed by the registration of two town greens in Oxford, namely the Trap Grounds in 2006 and Warneford Meadow in 2010.
Setting aside Oxford’s unique campaign history in preserving access to green spaces, we can conclude that the Headington footpaths campaign demonstrated that RoW claims can be successful in designating paths in cities and towns. The relevant legislation is equally applicable in urban areas as it is in the countryside and more research should be carried out on why such claims are so rare in urban settings. The dedication of lost paths for commuting and recreation, using RoW legislation, should definitely be in the toolbox of sustainable transport experts and urban planners.
Sietske Boeles is a retired psychiatrist and Oxford based environmental campaigner; this blog is based on her recent History MA thesis about the Oxford footpaths campaign.