Farm fields from open cast land

Image: © Hywel Williams Taken: 27 Jan 2008

Until recently, the land beyond the gateway was an opencast mine. A local man who was walking his dog told me that when the mine was created, assurances were made that all rights of way and thoroughfares would be restored once the mine had completed its operation as would be the field boundaries. All the public rights of way listed on the council's definitive map have been faithfully preserved and re-created but strangely not the more major roads and thoroughfares that weren't listed as public rights of ways. This has led to a very strange network of public footpaths that lead to nowhere! Where a footpath met a road prior to mining, it simply stops at a fence with no means of continuing - and in some cases another footpath can be seen continuing "further down the road" with no way of crossing to it. The local man told me that the way the land has been sold back to the farmers (including the roads) has been a cause of contention - I was told that the land owner has asked walkers not walk along the old road routes.

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