Public Rights of Way Across Your Land: Footpaths, Bridleways, Your Duties and How to Divert One

Buy a slice of the countryside and sooner or later you meet the yellow arrow on the gatepost. A public right of way is a route the public are legally entitled to use, and if one crosses your land you own the soil beneath it but not the right to close it off. That surprises a lot of new owners. The good news is the duties are fairly simple, and most disputes come from not knowing them rather than from anyone being difficult.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. The detailed rules below, the widths, the ploughing deadlines, the bull breeds, apply to England. Wales runs on the same legal framework but has its own guidance. Scotland and Northern Ireland are genuinely different systems, so read the nation-by-nation section before you act, and always check the current gov.uk source and your local council.

The four kinds of public right of way

Your local council keeps a "definitive map", the legal record of public rights of way in your area. In England and Wales it records four categories, and what you are allowed to do on a path depends entirely on which one it is:

The category is fixed by the map, not by how the path looks on the ground. If you think the map is wrong, you apply to change the record, you do not simply treat it as whatever suits you.

What you must do: your duties as the owner

The gov.uk guidance is blunt about the core duty: "you must keep the route visible and not obstruct or endanger users." In practice that breaks down into a handful of concrete jobs.

Keep the route clear. No permanent or temporary fences, walls, hedges, padlocked gates or barbed wire across the path, and do not let vegetation close it in from the sides or above. Remember horse riders need more headroom than walkers on a bridleway.

Mind the field-edge and cross-field rules. This is where a lot of arable owners slip up:

• A field-edge footpath or bridleway must never be cultivated. Keep 1.5 metres undisturbed for a footpath and 3 metres for a bridleway.
• A cross-field path may be cultivated, but you must keep it apparent to at least 1 metre wide for a footpath or 2 metres for a bridleway, and free of crops.

Reinstate quickly after ploughing. If you do cultivate a cross-field path, you must make it usable again within 14 days of the first disturbance for a crop, or 24 hours for any later cultivation, unless the highway authority has agreed a longer period in writing beforehand (it can allow up to a further 28 days). Miss the deadline and it is an offence, with a fine up to level 3 on the standard scale.

Look after stiles and gates. Where a stile or gate on the path is yours to maintain, keep it safe and reasonably easy to use. You can claim back 25 per cent, and sometimes more, of the cost of replacement work from the highway authority. You must get the authority's permission before you put up any new structure on the path. An unauthorised gate or stile is treated as an obstruction and can be removed at your expense.

Spraying is not a loophole. If you have to spray a field a path runs through, you can offer walkers an informal alternative line to keep them clear, but that does not close the right of way. If people keep using the proper route despite your notices, you must stop spraying while they are there.

Blocking a path is a criminal offence

If you fence off, gate up or grow crops across a right of way, you are not just being awkward, you may be committing an offence. A footpath or bridleway is a "highway" in law.

The term "highway authority" simply means the council responsible for the route: usually the county council or unitary authority, or the national park authority where the path runs through a national park.

You cannot close or move a path yourself

This is the single most important thing to take away. However inconvenient the line of a path is, you cannot lawfully divert or extinguish it on your own initiative. It takes a legal order, made by the authority, after consultation.

There are three main routes, all decided by the council rather than by you:

• Diversion order, Highways Act 1980 section 119. Moves a footpath or bridleway to a new line. The council cannot confirm it unless the new route "will not be substantially less convenient to the public" than the old one.
• Extinguishment order, Highways Act 1980 section 118. Closes a path entirely, but only where the council is satisfied it "is not needed for public use". These are hard to obtain and rarely granted.
• Order under Town and Country Planning Act 1990 section 257. Diverts or stops up a path where a planning permission means it has to move to let development go ahead.

The process runs roughly like this. You apply to the council. It decides whether to make the order. If it does, the order is advertised publicly so anyone can object. If nobody objects, the council can confirm it as an unopposed order. If there are objections that are not withdrawn, the order is referred to the Planning Inspectorate, and an independent inspector decides. The path only changes once the order is confirmed and the new route is in place on the ground. You, the applicant, pay the costs, which even for a straightforward order commonly run to a few thousand pounds. Speak to the rights of way team at your council before you start.

Right to roam and open access land

Separate from paths, the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 gives the public a right to walk over certain "open access land": mountain, moor, heath, down and registered common land, shown on official maps. It does not open up ordinary fields, gardens or farmland. And even within an access area, "excepted land" stays private, including houses and their grounds, land used to grow crops, building sites, parks and gardens, golf courses and working quarries. To cross excepted land the public must use a right of way.

If you do have open access land, the dog rules are worth knowing, because they are the ones walkers ask about most. On open access land in England a dog must be kept on a lead no more than 2 metres long between 1 March and 31 July, to protect ground-nesting birds, and at all times around livestock. These specific dates were confirmed against the live gov.uk right-to-roam page. They apply to open access land, not to ordinary public rights of way, where general control-of-dogs law applies instead.

Nation by nation

The duties, widths and deadlines above are England's. The framework differs across the UK, and Scotland especially works on a completely different principle.

Wales runs on the same statutes as England, so the four categories, the obstruction offence and the order process all apply, just administered by Welsh councils and Natural Resources Wales. Treat the England detail here as a close guide, but confirm figures against Welsh guidance.

Scotland does not use the England-and-Wales system at all. The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 created a broad right of responsible, non-motorised access to most land and inland water, the "right to roam", exercised in line with the Scottish Outdoor Access Code. It does not extend to fields of growing crops or to the ground around a house. Access authorities plan a network of "core paths" and can require obstructions to be removed. There is no field-edge width rule or dairy-bull ban of the English type.

Northern Ireland has, by contrast, very few recorded public rights of way. They fall under the Access to the Countryside (NI) Order 1983, in three types: a footpath (walkers only), a bridleway (walkers and horse riders) and a carriageway (all users including motor vehicles). The owner or occupier must not obstruct the route and must maintain stiles and gates, contributing at least a quarter of the maintenance cost.

The traps people fall into

• Thinking that owning the land lets you close the path. It does not. The public right sits on top of your ownership.
• Fencing off or padlocking a route "temporarily". That is an obstruction from day one, and an offence.
• Ploughing a field-edge path, or missing the reinstatement deadline on a cross-field one.
• Putting up a new stile or gate without the council's permission, then finding it removed at your cost.
• Displaying a bull warning sign when there is no bull, or keeping a banned dairy-breed bull in the field.
• Assuming the "right to roam" lets people wander your fields. It only covers mapped open access land.
• Applying England's rules in Scotland or Northern Ireland, where the whole system is different.

Before you act: check these

1. Which category is the path, footpath, bridleway, restricted byway or BOAT, on the definitive map?
2. Is the path along the field edge (never cultivate) or across it (reinstate to width, on time)?
3. Are any stiles or gates yours to maintain, and are they safe and easy to use?
4. If you keep a bull, is it a permitted breed and age for a field with public access?
5. Do you actually want the path moved? If so, budget for a section 119 or section 257 order and talk to the council first.
6. Do you have open access land, and if so are the dog and excepted-land rules clear to you?
7. Which nation's rules apply to your land?

When in doubt, check the current gov.uk guidance on landowner responsibilities for public rights of way, or the equivalent for Scotland or Northern Ireland, and speak to the rights of way team at your local council before you fence, plough or build. A short conversation now is far cheaper than removing an obstruction later, or an enforcement notice.