The law has been changed to enable the stopping up permanently of all pre-1949 public paths unless they are formally on the 'definitive' map by a given date.

A local-initiative pilot scheme to help determine the resources needed to meet the deadline has been set up.

The main aim is to establish the approximate magnitude of the work needed locally and nationally to get these paths on the map in time and to explore ways of achieving the recording of these paths before the deadline.

Also of course to actually record them.

This pilot scheme concentrates on paths that are in everyday use but not yet on the definitive map. We are also noting any unrecorded paths that we come across that have become disused due to whatever reason, but there is national funding to discover these and they are not our priority.

The work complements the DEFRA / Countryside Agency work on Lost Ways rather than duplicating it.
 

This public path is unrecorded, despite the waymark.
If not recorded it will very likely cease to be a public path on the Statutory date.

We had on this page some criticism of Government, accusing it of doing virtually nothing to discover those lost ways that are actually more unrecorded than lost, that is they are in everyday use, not physically lost at all and simply not yet recorded.

Gratifyingly the official view has come round to accept that there was quite a lot in what we were saying.

Accordingly we have deleted from this site most of the detailed criticism that was on it.