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We have produced a RoWIP for Derbyshire, which will build on the day to day work already being carried out with respect to our work on public rights of way and will form a distinctive strand within the Local Transport Plans for the County.

Without losing sight of the statutory work this Plan provides a unique opportunity for us to move forward and plan strategically for how we will improve the management, provision and promotion of a wider rights of way and access network based on what the public have asked for.

The Derbyshire RoWIP covers the whole of the county including the Peak District National Park.

Derbyshire’s Rights of Way Improvement Plan looks at:

• The extent to which local rights of way (including footpaths, cycle tracks, bridleways, restricted byways, byways, trails and greenways) meet the present and future needs of the public.

• The opportunities provided by local rights of way for exercise and other forms of open-air recreation and the enjoyment of the council's area together with the use of the network by local people as a means to access workplaces, schools and other local facilities.

• The accessibility of local rights of way to blind or partially sighted people and those with limited mobility or other impairments.                   

The RoWIP Process for Derbyshire:

    1    Information gathering - by April 2004.

    2    Assessment and analysis - by July 2005.

    3    Final evaluation and statement of action - June 2006.

    4    Publication and consultation of draft plan - December 2006 to March 2007.

    5    Publication of final plan - November 2007.

The Consultation Process

An extensive public consultation took place between September 2004 and June 2005 to find out what people wanted to see in the plan. Here is the process we followed:

• Key Issues Questionnaires were sent to county stakeholders, Local Access Forums, district based Countryside Access Networks, along with district and parish/ town councils. More than 200 responses were received.  

• Derbyshire’s Citizens' Panel consultations also led to more than 5,000 responses being received. A full report of the results from the Citizens Panel can be found below. 

• General User Surveys were also issued and aimed at individuals with as wide a range of ability levels and type of use as possible; to include local residents and visitors, non-users and users. This method of consultation attracted 3,250 responses. 

• Focus/Discussion Groups were held to explore additional issues relating to conservation/heritage, landowners, businesses/tourism and disability issues.  The write up of the results from the Focus Groups can be accessed from the reports below.         

• Examples of the questionnaires that were used during the consultation process can be viewed or downloaded from the 'more information' section below. 

The results from the consultation process have been analysed and a summary report entitled 'Assessment of Needs' is available to download below.

The two Local Access Forums, the Derby and Derbyshire Local Access Forum and the Peak District Local Access Forum, have played an important part in the whole process due to their role as statutory advisors to the County Council on strategic access and open air recreation.

As well as receiving regular progress reports, members of both forums attended a workshop to advise us on which themes and aims would enable any actions identified to deliver improvements to the wider access network to be grouped together.  A copy of the report from this workshop can be viewed by using the link in the ‘more information’ section below.

The Draft Plan

The Draft Plan was published in December 2006 and was followed by a three month public consultation exercise which lasted until the end of March 2007.

The Draft Plan took on board people's views from the initial consultation exercise and included a Statement of Action which set out how we intend to improve and maintain the network of more than 3,000 miles of public rights of way and trails across Derbyshire to help people to get out and about in the county and enjoy our countryside.

The consultation exercise was aimed at making as many people aware of the draft plan as possible and asked for help to prioritise the proposals.  We received more than 1,000 responses to the consultation and have produced a report on the results of the draft RoWIP consultation, in addition to a summary of the detailed written responses.  These are intended to provide feedback on how we have responded to the consultation.  The reports can be viewed below.

Final plan and delivery

The finished plan was completed and published in November 2007. It can be viewed or downloaded by clicking the links below.  For ease of use the document has been split up into five separate sections.

You can also request a copy of the plan on CDRom or as a printed document by contacting:

Tel: Call Derbyshire 08 456 058 058
email: contact.centre@derbyshire.gov.uk

We are now in the process of drawing up annual work programmes in order to start on the delivery stage.

We will be publishing these in due course to demonstrate how we intend to translate the RoWIP into actions on the ground over the life of the plan, using grants and other non-statutory forms of funding.

Streams of funding will also be identified within the Local Transport Plan. However this process will not be immediate and priorities laid out in the plan will be followed.

See the results of our consultation (opens in a new window).

Please note that some of these documents are of a large size and may take some time to open or download on slower internet connections such as 56k modems.