Diverting routes a bad move

I have just read of proposals to make it easier for land owners to apply and divert rights of way and public paths to suit them.

I think this would be a really bad move for our history and heritage in the landscape.

Some public paths are centuries, maybe even millennia old, dating back to prehistoric times.

Some paths cross through where Roman forts have stood, some skirt the foot of Norman mottes and vanished castles.

Others trace the path to ancient burial mounds.

There are old hollow ways and sunken ways, some are drivers' roads or the way of pedlars.

When you tread an old path across the fields, it is exciting for the walker and "history hunter" because who knows what clues to the past await us.

An old path is not just a path, its where our ancestors chose to walk.

Surely it matters if the long held original line of the path is closed and is diverted along a new route?

If you divert the ancient public paths and rights of way at the behest of land owners, you will divert the walker away from the line in the land that can reveal alot about the land's history.

Walking in the countryside will lose a facet of its joy and meaning. Diverting a footpath should be made more difficult, not less. It should be the very rarest exception because they carry so much history.

We will all lose something precious if these proposals are passed and many of our ancient paths are re-routed.

June McCarthy, Oswestry