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For the second time in as many weeks, I get to the top of the Winaway only to be met by a car being driven in the opposite direction. This is on the recently (last couple of years?) tarmaced road that runs between the two fields and that ends at the A4185 between the two entrances to North Drive. At least this time round the car pulled over to one side. Last time around I was so surprised I didn’t think to note the registration plate, but I did this time around.
Is this legal? Or have I just been “lucky” never to encounter anyone driving on this stretch after it got improved several years ago? I should point out that while feeling dubious about meeting traffic on such a narrow path, no one’s been injured.
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Absolutely not!
But I don’t know if, as cyclists, we’re in a position to complain as according to Ordnance Survey and Oxons own PROW interactive map (path 243/17/10), that’s still designated as a Footpath only.
So, if and when you report it. You were walking… 😉
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I had a similar problem recently in Didcot.
I would sometimes see a car on the path between Cow Land and the Skateboard Park. I am guessing someone was lost, or maybe picking up their child from the skateboard park. It was always the same car.
I sent an email to the local council, saying I had seen a car on a Footpath several times.
A few weeks later on the way home I saw that an offset fence had been installed at the Cow Lane end of the path.
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Was just about to say the same thing, Peter! 😀
I’ve seen the (very rare) car up there, and I’ve seen what I presume is the farmer using the tarmac path to get a 4×4 into the neighbouring field. I know there’s also a regular dog-walker that often parks their vehicle at the South end of it (courteously, off to one side of the path) around 09:30 on weekdays.
Given that I’m also “illegally” using the path every morning by cycling up it, I’m not sure I’m in a great position to complain! 😛
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It’s a private road so technically there’s no public right of way except for pedestrians. As it’s privately owned, I would assume that the owners can do as they please and therefore can drive on it if they wish.
There may be an agreement between whoever improved the path (presume sustrans?) and the private owners that vehicles can’t be driven on it so may be worth reporting to sustrans if its being damaged, but the knackered road they can prob do as they please. Problem with reporting is they could get petty and block cyclists from using altogether unless there was an agreement in place when the path was improved that it was on the condition cyclists were allowed.
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An interesting thread, and thank you for posting it.
If you go to the associated Oxfordshire County Council page of the Fix My Street website here
- https://fixmystreet.oxfordshire.gov.uk/report/1679108
, you will see that the resurfacing of this section of The Winnaway (the correct name of it being just Winaway – one “n”, no “the”) was carried out “in 2016 as part of the County Council’s Winnaway Cycle Improvement Project (Ref – S-000579)”.
That, for me, nails it as being (primarily?) a cycle path, being improved by the County Council for that very purpose. If pedestrians, horse riders etc. wish to use it then I, for one, see no problem, and even the local farmer should have a justifiable claim to its use. That said, Joe Public and his/her driving their Chelsea tractor along it should be questioned. It’s that classic tension though, isn’t it, between having the power to do something vs. exercising the right to do it. I’m sure that, at a pinch, you could squeeze a Monster Truck on it, but this would probably go against the spirit of OCC’s resurfacing of it five years ago.
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