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Rights of way row began in 1920s

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THE recent campaign to enshrine the footpath along Dynamite Quay and Lelant Beach on Cornwall's Definitive Map is only the latest instalment in a rights of way row which has simmered since the 1920s.

Lelant historian and writer, Maxwell Adams, who has researched the subject through council records and archives of The Cornishman, has unearthed a controversy which has rumbled on for the best part of a century.

When the Tyringham estate sold off much of its property in Lelant in 1920, the sale document made clear that there was not a right of way for the general public.

Asbestos

Ship dismantlers Thomas W Ward, who are likely to have stripped the asbestos lagging now leaking out onto the beach from vessels recycled at the spot, bought the quay at Lelant for £2,800.

Within two years there was a furious debate in the village about rights of way.

The parish council and villagers were adamant that farmers had the right to access the beach to get sand.

They also said that locals had used the route for years without hindrance.

At the same time, a row was developing about a right of way along the Saltings to the railway station – what is now the metalled public road but was then a track of indeterminate status.

In April 1922, the parish council had its first debate about the contended right of way at the quay where it badgered the rural district council.

But in September the parish council learned that the district council had written to the new owners, Ward's, to say it thought there was no right of way.

The parish council countered that "there had been a right of way before the quay was built" as it had letters from villagers who had used the route for many years.

A brief article in The Cornishman of September 13 that year gives an account of the village side of the case.

It was claimed that when the St Ives line was built, an old roadway to the beach was closed and superseded by the road of which the railway bridge forms a part.

That road was said to have been used by the public going to the ferry, together with a path across the green below the ferry bridge connecting with this road.

Up to the time Dynamite Quay changed hands, farmers drove to the beach for sand and others used the road to the ferry. According to the Trevethoe Estate, the taking of sand was a concession to tenants and farmers.

But local inhabitants said there was constant and uninterrupted usage.

At a public meeting held in the village it was stated that though the activities of Messrs Ward and Co in "employing labour and utilising the quays which have long been idle is a welcome and desirable thing", residents and visitors were astonished that they can be shut off by new barricades from the quays and ferry.

The issue rumbled on and in 1923, a petition was put up in the post office and sent to the county council in support of the right of way.

Nothing, however, was resolved.

In 1925 the question broke out again with a further Cornishman report that the closure of the path by Ward's, "the breakers of old warships", has aroused "considerable indignation".

In 1925 county councillors came down to see the obstructed route for themselves and met some local residents at the site.

A good case

The county passed the question back to the district council and the farmers, whose right to go and get sand was affected by the closure, went to the union for help.

Seventy people went to a public meting on July 15 where the parish council announced that it had counsel's opinion that the inhabitants of Lelant had a good case for there being a public right of way.

Thomas Harry, a Lelant councillor, said one of the county council committee had advised the parishioners to pull the obstruction down, adding that they had been "too slow" to act.

But rather than rush to the barricades, or tear down the obstruction, the people of Lelant set up a committee.

They vowed to ask the local farmers' union to get involved, wrote to the MP and quay owners, Ward.

But other than a letter to the district council from Lelant Parish Council in February 1926 saying that it could produce living evidence to prove that the path had been used for over 70 years without interference, the matter seemed to fizzle out.

Nothing was formally resolved and sometime later people began to use the route again. A second failed attempt to establish the right of way was launched in 2002 before the recent closure re-ignited the debate again.

Current landowners ING, last month cordoned off the route amid fears of subsidence and asbestos contamination.

Used the path

St Ives Town Council are currently in the process of submitting testimonials from people who have used the path for more than 20 years to Cornwall Council's Rights of Way team.

Supporters are hopeful of a successful resolution.

But with a backlog on decisions at county hall, it could be months and even years before the issue is finally decided.