The Rutland Countryside Access Forum, part of Rutland County Council, is to investigate fully accessible countryside routes.

Speaking to members at their meeting this week, John Law presented his report entitled 'Miles without Barriers', saying: "Rutland has very few fully accessible countryside routes, which are promoted and open for public access. There are only three 'Countryside For All' routes in Rutland, two of which are at Rutland Water and the other being at Exton. Leaflets are available displaying gradients, cross slopes, route surfaces, width between barriers and gates.

"There are not likely to be additional Countryside For All routes in the County in the near future, so to make Rutland countryside more accessible to members of the public with limited mobility it is necessary to examine how accessible are our Public Rights of Way (PROW). The public must be made aware of their standard of accessibility, therefore we would like to provide and promote a web site which displays to the public how accessible individual routes are across the network. This will be achieved by displaying the PROW in categories which denote if they are barrier free (a route without stiles etc.) or the type of barriers on the route.

"We will need to involve members of the public in checking and collecting data to ensure the correct information is available to categories PROW routes. Additionally, members of the public can survey the routes, and once the web site is live, ensure standards do not deteriorate by providing a method that displays how to prioritise improvements in the PROW network, and to make the network more accessible to people with limited mobility, and aid green social prescribing.

"Volunteers will be required from all communities to help us understand the nature of the PROW network. It will be useful if we can attract people to volunteer from all sectors whether they are individuals or groups. The social prescribing team could also see this as the start of the connection between their clients and a green social prescribing activity.

"As we are all aware funding is very competitive now. Two likely sources of funds are the National Lottery and Natural England. Once we have a detailed report on the way forward, it would make sense to send it to Natural England, as they may fund or partly fund the project, as it may have some benefits to other authorities. The project costs would include Training volunteers, coordinating the volunteers, summarising the data collected by volunteers, and web design plus the cost of any extra space needed for the web site."

In order to give persons with disability full access to the countryside routes British Standard BS5709:2018 provides: 'Gaps Gates and Stiles places the emphasis on Least Restrictive Access; Suitability of structures should always be considered on the assumption that a person with reduced mobility will be going out without more-mobile helpers, so will need to operate the structure on their own, seated on their mobility vehicle.'

Mr Law went on to add: "A two-way, self-closing gate closing gate with trombone handle and Centrewire Easy Latch is the easiest to use. And If a kissing gate really must be used, we only recommend the Centrewire Woodstock Large Mobility kissing gate. This is fitted with a Radar lock which can be used by some users of mobility vehicles. This is the only type of kissing gate that is large enough to be used by all terrain and large mobility vehicles."

Members agreed to investigate the matter further before the (provisional) date for the next scheduled meeting of the Forum is on Wednesday 6 September 2023.