§ 43. Mr. HALL-CAINEasked the Minister of Transport whether he is aware that riders have been forbidden to use the grass margins along the Great West Road in the county of Middlesex and along considerable stretches of road in the vicinity of Manchester and Leeds; and that powers have recently been obtained by the corporations of Wigan, Doncaster, Sunderland, Birmingham, Weston-super-Mare, and others to enable them equally to ban riders from grass margins in their areas of a purely ornamental nature; and whether money from the Road Fund has been used to assist the ornamentation of the margins and their consequent withdrawal from use by riders in any of these places?
§ Mr. HORE-BELISHAI am aware that certain authorities have obtained powers to enable them to exclude riders from such areas which are considered unsuited for that purpose; but it is not my practice to make grants towards the execution of works which will prevent the reasonable use of the highways by equestrians.