Commons Bill [HL]

The noble Lord presses me to give an example of minor encroachments. This could be a road sign, a notice board and so on; something at that kind of level. I know from many years of working in different capacities of the same kind as the noble Lord that, if I am not careful, he will press me for an exhaustive list. But, on the scale of encroachments, the kind of example I have given would be regarded as minor. I think the noble Lord will accept that to impose a duty on local authorities to take enforcement action on something very minor might well be resented. Forums would expect advice to be given to any legal authority which may enforce under Part 3. That is the kind of area we are looking at As to rights of way, we quite understand that highway authorities have a duty to remove obstructions—any person has a power to serve a notice on a highway authority requiring it to seek the removal of an obstruction—and that is not an unreasonable argument. But there are significant differences between rights of way and common land that must be recognised. Local authorities do not have the same duty in respect of common land as they have to highway authorities. We accept that much registered common land is now subject to a public right of access, but we have to recognise that in many instances access is not the only purpose the common land serves. It could have many other uses, the most obvious of which is agriculture. We also need to consider the nature of the offence. Obstructing the highway is a straightforward matter, but deciding whether works prevent or impede access may not be. That is why we believe that these differences call for a different solution. We do not believe that a duty in every single case should be placed on local authorities to take it up. I understand the noble Lord’s concern, but perhaps the clarification of local authorities’ powers may assist in those cases to which he refers where he believes the local authorities have not acted with enough endeavour where blatant abuse has taken place.