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decision making and the maintenance of rights of way. Co-operation is the key to successfully dealing with the conflicts that are increasing with the Year 2000 reclassification Target getting ever closer. The Hierarchy of Trail Routes (HoTR) initiative in the Lake District has shown that conflicting user groups can work together objectively to solve disputes and organise a workable rights of way network.
The conflicts between user groups are making the government take notice because of the problems that the conflicts are creating due to the outdated legal/administrative framework for dealing with rights of way. There needs to be a new national system for dealing with conflicts and a restructuring of the processes that are involved with reclassifying rights of way. Such a system must include user groups in discussions and be flexible enough to be adapted to different situations something the present rigid system does not. However the government must be objective in the face of the powerful and efficient lobby groups that many user groups have become. For example whilst some groups that call for the removal of 4WD recreational vehicles from rights of way may be raising doubts over the sustainability of such use, they may not be particularly helpful. The government has to remember that such groups represent their members and are mainly concerned with protecting rights of way for their user group. They seethe hurried reclassification programme as a way of claiming rights of way in the confusion for their own members.
The government should take notice of the conflicts between user groups although perhaps not to the extremes that some groups such as the Ramblers' Association may suggest. The Year 2000 Reclassification Target for rights of way represents an excellent opportunity to solve user group conflicts and develop a new efficient management system capable of taking the rights of way network and its users into the next millennium
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