§ Mr. TippingTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will set out for(a) the countryside access scheme allowing public access to set-aside land and (b) the scheme allowing access for land in environmentally sensitive areas (i) its number and direction of such agreements, (ii) the location and size of these sites, (iii) what steps have been taken to inform the public of these access opportunities, (iv) the payment made to the landowner of each site, (v) the administrative costs of these schemes, (vi) whether public access was available on each site prior to designation under the schemes. [24618]
§ Mr. JackThe information requested is as follows:
(a) Countryside Access Scheme
- (i) There are currently 78 agreements in England. There are similar schemes in Wales and Scotland.
- (ii) Details of access agreements have been lodged in the library of the House. The following table gives a summary of the position by county.
County Size (in hectares) Bedfordshire 91.3 Cambridgeshire 93.63 Essex 126.93 Hertfordshire 22.05 Norfolk 111.06 Buckinghamshire 21.57 Suffolk 142.52 Cumbria 4.45 Wiltshire 41.09 Warwickshire 16.7 Gloucestershire 14.33 Yorkshire 52.04 Humberside 14.74 Devon 15 Cornwall 15 Oxfordshire 42.55 Surrey 7.21 Hampshire 6.89 Kent 26.27 Northamptonshire 75.5 Nottinghamshire 21.78 Shropshire 1.68 (iii) Participants are asked to send a map of the land opened to public access provided by the Ministry, to their local parish council. Further copies of maps are sent to the Countryside Commission, the 318W Rambler's Association and, where appropriate, the local national park authority. Members of the public can request free copies of these maps.
(iv) The first payments to participants will be made early in 1996. Participants will receive an annual rate of £90 per hectare of route opened and £45 per hectare of open field opened to public access for a period of five years. Participants can normally only claim up to a maximum of 15 hectares of public access on any one farm.
(v) In 1994–95 administrative costs were £300,000 in England. This figure includes significant start-up costs as the scheme only opened for applications in September 1994.
(vi) Project officers inspect every potential public access site, any land where there is evidence of existing de facto public access will not normally be accepted into the scheme. Similarly, land which is designated as a public right of way or land to which public access has been secured under another publicly funded scheme is not eligible.
(b) Environmentally Sensitive Areas Scheme
(i) 26 management agreements with access tier.
(ii) Details of the access agreements have been lodged with the library of the House. The following table provides a summary by Environmentally Sensitive Area.
ESA Number of agreements Total length (in kilometers) Broads 4 4.62 Pennine dales 2 0.91 Somerset levels and moors 1 0.31 South Downs 1 1.38 Suffolk river valleys 1 0.98 Exmoor 2 1.01 Lake District 10 7.55 South West Peak 1 1.25 Dartmoor 3 5.84 Upper Thames tributaries 1 0.48 (iii) Maps of completed access routes are sent to the relevant parish councils, the Countryside Commission, the National Park Authority (Where applicable) and the Rambler's Association. These maps may also be sent to other organizations and members of the public, on request.
(iv) Agreement holders receive £170 per kilometre of access route.
(v) Unlike the countryside access scheme, it is not possible to disaggregate the costs of administration of the public access tier from the total costs of administering the ESA scheme.
(vi) Only land which offers new or additional access opportunities is eligible for the scheme. Land which is subject to an existing right of way is not accepted.