Mapping Core Paths

Ken Thomson

Core paths are creatures of the Land Reform (Scotland) 2003. Each access (local or national park) authority has had to "draw up a system [i.e. a set of maps] of paths sufficient for the purpose of giving the public reasonable access throughout their area." Core paths may be rights of way, other paths, or any "other routes", but they do not carry any special rights of access beyond those defined generally by the Act, unlike rights of way, roads, etc., which have their own set of rights and responsibilities. In most cases, core paths consist of existing off-road paths or tracks. Local authorities "may" (i.e. they need not! - and usually do not, for lack of funds) maintain core paths, keep them free from obstruction, and provide directions, such as signposts.

Runner and rider on core path © R Webb

Following passage of the Act, the process of defining core paths - which cover about 20,000 km nationwide - took several years, what with design considerations (e.g. for "local communities", hillwalkers, the disabled, horse-riders, etc.), objections (from landowners, neighbours and even some hillwalking clubs anxious about "municipalisation"), and finally Ministerial approval. The Cairngorms National Park has 311 core paths, ranging from small-scale local circulars to the Lairigs Ghru and Laoigh.

Apart from the issue of improving and maintaining core paths in an era of austerity, one point not addressed by the Act was the mapping of core paths by the Ordnance Survey (OS). Most such paths are in fact shown (less than 5% of the network is "new"), but with no special colour, marking (e.g. dashes) or information key showing their status. This differs from England, which has no core paths as such, but where a registration process has defined the relatively dense system of rights of way, which are shown in green or red. In 2005, the Scottish Government issued "guidance" to access authorities, anticipating OS action on core paths, but none of the latter has been forthcoming.

In September 2015, soon after the Scottish network was completed, at least for the time being, OS - nowadays a limited company owned 100% by the UK government - issued a position paper. This recognised the importance of mapping core paths, but raised a number of problems, including:

• Intellectual property - OS wanted full rights to commercially exploit the data, which would require securing the agreement of all 34 Access Authorities.
  
• Data and metadata issues -new data-handling procedures would be needed, and access authorities have differed slightly in terms of which paths were shown (with purple dashes) in their maps
  
• Cartographic representation - to ensure that core path marking did not obscure other mapped information, and was clear about what users might expect, e.g. visibility at ground level, or signage.

For these reasons, OS wanted more thought to be given to "costs and implications" and to "a strong business case". In February 2016, the National Access Forum (NAF), which has been pursuing this issue since 2015, received the following response from OS:

"Ordnance Survey has considered all aspects of including this data into both paper and digital products. However, the technical, operational and management costs of integrating core paths data into OS products are estimated to be significantly higher than the needs currently being expressed by the end users and also the additional value that would be gained across the market more widely."

In May 2016, OS informed NAF that it had decided not to add core paths to their maps. Helen Todd of Ramblers Scotland then wrote a paper for NAF on the "business case" for core path mapping, pointing out the benefits to the Scottish economy of outdoor recreation and tourism, and how better information about access was needed to encourage such activity. A NAF discussion of this paper, and related material, in September 2016, concluded that pressure to achieve OS mapping of core paths (and some rights of way) should be maintained. A small sub-group was formed to take this forward.

Meanwhile, the inclusion of core paths in the geographic data-sets contained in the local authority Spatial Hub website has been completed. Ramblers Scotland has launched an online campaign to demonstrate public support for OS mapping: see Ramblers-Out There. At time of writing (August 2017), this had accumulated some 1300 responses, nearly all positive, but the way ahead is unclear.

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