MORE than 2,000 spots along Herefordshire’s network of public footpaths and byways are restricted or impassable – around one every mile, the county council has revealed.

A Herefordshire Council spokesperson said that as of the start of June, “there are 1,172 public rights of way (PROW) enquiries still waiting to be checked in Herefordshire by our dedicated team of inspectors”.

A further 428 cases “are recorded as problems but have not yet been fixed”, while 455 jobs “have been raised but are still not completed”, they said.

This contrasts with a recent Freedom of Information (FOI) response by the council, which said just 271 PROW enquiries “remain unaddressed and uninspected”, while 92 “have been classified as defects but not yet rectified”.

Dave Howerski, Herefordshire South “correspondent” for campaign group the Open Spaces Society, who made the FOI request, then challenged this response, saying he had personally reported 774 PROW defects on the FixMyStreet website over the last five years.

This currently lists 1,279 reports of PROW defects as “open” in Herefordshire, while just 117 are “fixed”.

Mr Howerski said he had wanted to “discover the accumulated backlog of unfixed defects over the 13 years of the BBLP contract” – the public realm deal with contractors Balfour Beatty which terminated last month.

He added that the official Herefordshire Local Access Forum (LAF), on which he sits, “has been attempting to do this unsuccessfully over many years”.

But Cabinet member Dan Hurcomb, who has overseen the county’s switch to a new public realm regime and who also sits of the LAF, told the council’s environment and sustainability scrutiny committee last week that the council’s “horrendous” data on its PROWs may well overstate the problem.

He slammed the “ludicrous” 2,000-plus total , claiming “parishes say they resolved them 12 months ago and they’re still open – so I wouldn’t place too much reliance on that data”.

The council manages a total of 2,164 miles of public footpaths, bridleways and byways.

Its spokesperson added: “We have recently doubled the number of inspectors that we employ, as well as working closer with parish footpath officers to support work on the ground.

“We have appointed local and regional contractors onto a framework that will provide us with further capacity to deliver an additional £1 million investment.”

Residents have reported that some paths near Welsh Newton are in a horrendous state.

A stile on Manson Lane about a mile from the village is completely overgrown, the steps to it dangerously worn away, the bannister loose, and the stile bottom step broken off.

The link path across the lane also has worn steps, has lost the signage post and is likewise totally overgrown.

You can report a PROW problem on Herefordshire Council’s website, although the location link appeared to be not working when tried by the Beacon.

Residents and ramblers can also contact the council’s Public Rights of Way team directly at [email protected]