The council has now purchased the land in 2001 to reopen this path, but is struggling to survey what it has bought! The path is still closed and its 2003!
A footpath has been obstructed by housing development since 1993. The council is still trying to sort this out.
Well Done Wigan MBC.
However, if the council had not allowed houses to be built on this land, which it had owned, we wouldn't be in this mess!
Not one, but two footpaths were blocked by development. The one of most use is from Cedar Ave. to the Hotel access road. The path was surfaced in 1963 and lit by a council lamp post! This path was established as an access route in the property deeds when the council sold the land for development (according to the judgement of the Government Planning Inspectorate 5/2/98). The planners had simply made inadequate provision for the footpath in the housing plans they approved.
This path was briefly re-opened after the first court action then blocked again.
The council have another path on their books for adoption as a public right of way between Cedar Ave. and Oak Ave. across the same patch of land.
The lesson from this has to be that footpaths taken for granted across council land, need to be adopted as full public footpaths while they are in use and before there are any thoughts of development on them! Only one problem, the waiting list is 7-8 years long at the rate the council works on these.
