The Ramblers’ Association has welcomed Natural England’s decision to scrap the ill-fated ‘Discovering Lost Ways Project’, and to make a fresh start to the process of mapping and recording of historic rights of way. Janet Davis, RA rights of way policy coordinator, looks at the background to the scheme and explains why now is the time for the Government to repeal its 2026 cut-off date for recording historic rights of way.

End of the road for ‘Discovering Lost Ways’, a new beginning for historic rights of way.

One of the most contentious provisions of the Countryside and Rights of Way (‘CROW’) Act 2000 is that which will extinguish all historic rights of way that have not been legally recorded by 1 January 2026. The government’s aim in introducing this new law––of completing the legal record of the network and so ensuring certainty for path users and landowners alike––was laudable and welcome; as was the promise of funding to assist with the research needed to make sure that the historic network was properly recorded. However, organisations representing path user groups were becoming increasingly concerned about the lack of progress with this research, which was being carried out by the government agency, Natural England, under the banner of the Discovering Lost Ways (‘DLW’) project.

It is now seven years (more than a quarter of the way into the 25-year period before the cut-off date) since the CROW Act received royal assent, and not a single path has been formally recorded by the DLW project. As we pointed out when this law was passed, the task was immensely large and complex. By last year it was becoming clear that the DLW project was never going to identify all of the missing paths, let alone get them recorded; but even if it were partially successful, many thousands of routes within our cities, towns and villages which the DLW project was not addressing stood to be lost in 2026. Towards the end of last year speculation and disinformation about the future of the project were rife and a number of the leading path user groups, including the RA, were calling on the government to repeal the 2026 cut-off date and re-direct the operation of the DLW project.