You may be aware that in March 2025, the Council’s Highways and Transport Committee approved the adoption of an ‘Active Travel Hierarchy’. The Active Travel Hierarchy is a system of ranking our highways according to their importance to walkers, cyclists and users of mobility aids. By implementing a Hierarchy, the County Council can better understand which routes are most valuable to the community, which will help them to target their maintenance activities to ensure the existing highway network supports the Council’s Active Travel Strategy. The Strategy seeks to promote walking and cycling as the natural choices for shorter journeys to access places of employment, education or services and shops. This in turn will help to reduce carbon emissions and traffic congestion.
The Council carried out a public consultation in the summer of 2024 regarding the Active Travel Hierarchy. Before approval by the Committee, the Hierarchy was adjusted to prioritise highways that respondents told the council were important to them, and the council is also using the feedback to develop our approach to highway maintenance.
You can see two Committee papers regarding the Active Travel Hierarchy, from December 2024 and March 2025, by following the links below:
Public Rights of Way
The County Council is now developing a Public Rights of Way (PROW) Hierarchy, which will mean that a system of ranking our highways for non-motor traffic would apply to all routes maintained by the County Council.
PROW include the following types of public access:
· Public Footpaths (open to use by people travelling on foot)
· Bridleways (open to use by those on food, riding a horse, or using a bicycle)
· Restricted Byways (open to use by all of the above, but also to non-motorised vehicles such as horse-drawn carriages)
· Byways (open to use by all traffic including motor vehicles, but typically only maintained as soft, unsealed surfaces)
The consultation the council undertook last year revealed that PROW stakeholders are most concerned about the management of vegetation growth (an issue raised by 52% of respondents). Other issues that were frequently raised included requests for accessibility and inclusivity enhancements and ensuring adequate provision for horse riders. The feedback relating to PROW is summarised in sections 9 and 10 of this appendix to the report presented to the Highways and Transport Committee in March 2025.
Next steps
To help inform the development of the PROW Hierarchy, the council are now going to undertake further engagement with parish councils, councillors, and PROW user groups. In response to the 2024 consultation, the council received location-specific feedback regarding which PROW were considered most important by PROW users. We have used this to develop our draft PROW Hierarchy. However, to enrich the information we have about our communities’ priorities, we are now intending to write to our stakeholders to seek input on what routes are most valuable within their local areas, and whether they consider the draft Hierarchy to be appropriate. We are keen that a PROW Hierarchy should reflect routes that are important for active travel purposes – eg, for accessing shops, services, workplaces or schools – but also those that are valued for leisure or recreational purposes.
The council will be distributing a short questionnaire to parish councils and user groups towards the end of this week. This will be accompanied by a link to digital maps of our PROW, and additional background to help stakeholders complete the questionnaire. The questionnaire will also be send to Councillors which will need to be returned by 31 July. Please get in touch and let me know what you think so I can feed back to the County Council.
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