In many situations in England and Wales, walkers only have the right to walk along the line of the right of way, which should coincide with the path. There are therefore legal reasons for encouraging walkers to keep to paths, and often there are agricultural and environmental reasons also.
In some areas walkers have the legal right, or in Scotland, a traditional freedom, to walk anywhere. If the land is suitable and no damage will occur, there is no reason to keep to the path, if indeed one is necessary at all. Where paths are necessary to protect the land, it is also necessary to keep people to them.
The following section suggests various methods of obliging or encouraging walkers to keep to the path.
Obligatory methods
These should only be necessary where it is essential for legal or safety reasons to keep people on the path, or where trampling must be excluded from recently restored areas.
Fences and barriers
Fences along the sides of paths are not recommended as they are expensive to install and greatly increase the maintenance requirement of the path. They also need to be unclimbable if they are to be totally successful, and are then likely to be very unattractive. Fences may be necessary for safety reasons.
Barriers can be used across paths and entrances either to keep out certain users, or to seal off paths where a new route has been made. They may also be needed to block off short cuts. To be effective they have to be unclimbable if the aim is to close the path completely. Chestnut paling fence is suitable for closing narrow gaps as a temporary measure until planting obscures the path. Dead plant material is useful as it can form an impenetrable mass. Use thorn or gorse if possible, and lay with the butt ends away from the path so the walker is faced with the mass of twiggy growth.
Signs
‘Trespassers will be prosecuted’ is meaningless as trespassers can only be prosecuted for causing damage. ‘Private’ or ‘Keep Out’ are too familiar to be effective. If signs have to be used, an advisory message is better.
Advisory methods
On open land it is impractical to use fences or barriers to oblige people to keep to paths, and instead methods must be used to win the walker ’s respect for the reasons for following the designated route.
Waymarking
This is the standard method of advising walkers of the route of the path, and is especially important on farmland. Waymarking in upland areas is more controversial.
Signs
Messages which explain, e.g ‘Erosion control: please keep off’ and ‘Stock in field: please keep dogs on leads’ are preferable to ones which merely prohibit. Simple information displays explaining restoration and path work are helpful in getting a scheme accepted, and are appreciated by the public.
Occasionally the use of sharp messages such as ‘Wrong way: go back’ are useful on short cuts or closed-off paths.
Educational
The Country Code includes the advice ‘Keep to public paths across farmland’ and ‘Use gates and stiles to cross fences, hedges and walls’. National parks and other organisations produce leaflets which explain the need for restoration work, and include advice on keeping to paths on restored areas, slopes and fragile ground.
Temporary edging
Unless pitched or otherwise surfaced, paths through eroded areas which are being restored need delineating, so that walkers can see where they are supposed to walk. A simple method is to lay rope along the ground to mark the edges of the path. Alternatively, a line of stones can be used, which can include any removed from the path surface to make it more attractive for walking. Leave the rope or line of stones in position until there is sufficient recovery of the surrounding vegetation. Signs will be needed to inform walkers about the restoration scheme and to ask for their co-operation. This type of temporary edging has worked well on several sites, and walkers have respected the need to keep to the path.
Landscaping
Planting can function in several ways to direct the movement of walkers. Suitable plants with their growing requirements are listed here.
Screens
Planting of shrubs or trees can be used to screen a target which is off the path, or to screen potential short cuts. The latter will need to be combined with some sort of fencing to allow the plants time to establish.
Barriers
Hedges of thick, usually thorny vegetation are the traditional method of making barriers. Stock- and people-proof hedges need a lot of maintenance to be kept in good condition, but informal planting of thorn, holly, wild rose, bramble or gorse can be used for a fairly maintenance free barrier which will discourage people. They are best used for blocking short cuts, or planted in a mass to discourage access across an area. If used alongside a path, bramble and wild rose will need cutting back each year to keep the path open.
Diversionary planting
An interesting method was used at Cwm Idwal, North Wales, to keep walkers to a broad curving path and discourage them from short cutting. Clumps of rushes were planted and succeeded in keeping users to the path where fences and other barriers had failed. The explanation is that rushes immediately suggested wet ground, which people instinctively avoided.
Boulders, hollows and targets
Boulders are effective at keeping walkers on the path so long as they are carefully placed and landscaped to look entirely natural. Boulders should be carefully placed with the weathered and lichen-encrusted side upwards, set into the ground at least 100mm, and the turves replaced around.
Boulders carefully landscaped in this way appear to work because they are completely unobtrusive, and without being aware of it, the walker follows the intended path, even though the boulders are low and easily stepped over. Barriers made of stone, roughly piled up like small walls, look unnatural and attract attention, and are more likely to fail in closing off a braided path. Smaller boulders and stones are better used in a natural scattering to ‘roughen’ the surface of the path edges and surrounds, to make them look uncomfortable to walk on. The ‘trick’ appears to be to not allow doubt as to the path’s route register in the walker ’s mind. Part of this is leaving the site tidy and clean, so that walkers will scarcely notice that there have been any improvements. Use spoil from ditches to refill braid paths or holes where rocks have been removed for drain construction. Replace all turves right side up, and boulders with the weathered side up.
On sloping paths subject to erosion, regular maintenance is needed to remove large stones from path surfaces and scatter them to the lower side, to ensure that the path is always smoother and more inviting to walk on than the path surrounds.
Very large boulders can also be brought onto a site to discourage use of short cuts and braids on grassland or downland where there are naturally no boulders or stones to use. At Durdle Door, Dorset, large boulders were positioned using a JCB, to discourage use of eroded short cuts. The limestone boulders were thought to be less obtrusive than fences on an open clifftop location, and to be vandal-proof. The boulders have been effective in allowing vegetation recovery. They are popular as seats, and when used as such are even more effective as barriers! The boulders can be re-positioned as necessary.
Pathcraft Ltd., who work in Scotland and northern England, sometimes use the technique of ‘roughening’ the path surrounds to make them less attractive for walking on, by using excess spoil from ditches, repositioned in low mounds at the sides of the path or on short cuts and braids. These ‘blisters’ are made by carefully removing any remaining turf, mounding the spoil and turfing it over. The skill lies in making mounds that look natural, don’t themselves erode, and merely look like ‘rough ground’ to the walker.
In many situations a depression or a sharp drop from the edge of a path is more effective than a fence or barrier. It has been shown that if faced with a depression in the ground ahead, on otherwise level ground, people are more likely to walk around than if there is a mound of similar volume. In the same way, a ditch at one side of a path, even if dry, will keep most walkers on the path, whereas a bank will often be walked along.
Targets, if skilfully placed, can draw the eye and attract the walker along a certain route. Views are the most reliable target, but an information board or seat may also serve this purpose.
