Registering Historic Rights of Way

At today’s meeting of Norfolk County Council I asked whether they will be able to register all historic Rights of Way by the January 2026 deadline. My question to Cabinet Member Martin Wilby was:

In the last four years the Council has received 131 applications to add public rights of way to the Definitive Map. And in that time just 58 routes have actually been added.

One Parish in my division has been waiting three and a half years for a route to be added and it has only just been given draft approval, which triggers an automatic appeal process – so it is likely to be four years in total before it is registered.

Is the Council going to be able to meet the January 2026 deadline for registering historic rights of way, and if not, what is Cllr Wilby doing about it?

Cllr Wilby says they will be ready by the deadline but their record so far gives cause for concern so I will keep pressing them on the issue.

You can read more about Norfolk’s Public Rights of Way here. If you want to add a historic path to the Definitive Map, take a look at the heading ‘Unrecorded Public Rights of Way’ near the bottom of the page.