Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

My Lords, Amendments Nos. 135A and 154A aim to provide that, where a traffic regulation order prohibits the use of motor vehicles on a route over which public motor vehicular rights exist, on revocation of the order, the public motor vehicular rights will be extinguished in cases where the route is no longer suitable for use by such vehicles. Such a provision would serve no practical purpose; if the local authority considers that the route is unsuitable for use by motor vehicles, that local authority has the option of simply not revoking the traffic regulation order. Furthermore, traffic regulation orders are primarily formulated for, and for the most part employed on, the ordinary roads network. There is a danger here that amending the legislation relating to traffic regulation orders in order to deal with rights of way issues, could have unforeseen and adverse consequences for the rest of the highways network. For example, the proposed amendment might encourage local authorities to neglect to maintain certain highways, using this provision as a backdoor method of extinguishing rights, rather than going through the proper statutory process for extinguishment. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, will remember that I put forward those arguments in Committee, but there are some further arguments that I seek to use to persuade him not to press this amendment. I have already explained to the House that the Government have severe reservations about a statutory approach to assessing the suitability of rights of way. A similar approach was taken to the reclassification of roads used as public paths rights in the Countryside Act 1968. Disputes about some of these reclassifications are still going on to this very day. The difficulties would be even greater under these arrangements because we are contemplating statutory extinguishment of rights on the basis of the local authority’s assessment of its suitability without any process at all for objection or appeal. Moreover, a TRO only temporarily suspends the public’s right to use a highway; it does not extinguish them once and for all as the noble Lord seems to be proposing. Even so, the TRO-making process provides the opportunity for interested parties to object and be heard. This amendment would, we fear, enable once and for all extinguishment on the back of the TRO process, with no further process for those with an interest to have a say. Why create such difficulties when the local authority has the simple option of not revoking an order? I understand the expertise that the noble Lord brings to this subject, which is one that I cannot compete with in this House. However, for the reasons I have outlined, we believe that it would be wrong to accept these amendments and I hope that he may withdraw them.