A MAN has won a ten-year battle to establish that the public have a right-of-way across a field near York – after initially being warned it might take him 29 YEARS.

A planning inspector has backed a City of York Council order for a public footpath between Landing Lane and the Nurses’ Footpath in Fulford, rejecting an appeal by the owner of the land.

Graham Cheyne, who applied for the order in 2012, said: "It’s been a long hard struggle but perseverance has paid off and the public have a public right of way restored to their ownership.”

The Press reported in 2019 how the council had paid Mr Cheyne £250 in compensation after it allegedly told him he faced a possible 29-year wait for it to decide on his application and after the Local Government Ombudsman upheld his complaint against the authority.

The council apologised for the delay in making a ‘definitive map modification order’ on his request for a right of way across the field, and said sorry for the frustration caused by its failure to provide a reasonable timescale for carrying out a direction by the Secretary of State to make the order.

The council added that it was working to tackle a backlog of other historic rights of way applications across York.

The inspector, Helen Heward, said Mr Cheyne had made an application for the order in Fulford in January 2012 and the council had refused the application in 2016.

Mr Cheyne appealed and an inspector granted the appeal in 2017, and the council was directed to make an order to modify the Definitive Map and Statement for the area by adding a public footpath between Landing Lane and the Nurses’Footpath.

It did this in 2019, but the affected landowner appealed and submitted a number of objections.

The inspector said the Highways Act 1980 stated that where a way had been enjoyed by the public without interruption for a full period of 20 years, the way was presumed to have

been dedicated as a highway, unless there was sufficient evidence that there was no intention to dedicate it during that period.

She said the landowner believed the evidence was from a closely related group of family and friends that would have had shared knowledge of the route and that had been brought together by the applicant.

She said the council had been satisfied that ten members of the public had used the way as of right, without force and without secrecy during all or part of the period 1991-2011, who mainly described using it for recreational and dog walking.

The inspector concluded that, on a balance of probabilities, the evidence collectively pointed toward a public footpath along the claimed route.