It's a jungle out there

Recent figures from the Audit Commission put the council 110th out of 123 highway authorities in England which submitted figures for the state of footpaths.

Those ranked highest were the best for having easy to use footpaths.

Ken West, Blackburn correspondent for the society, said: "These figures do not surprise me at all. In fact, as these are the council's own figures the true figures are probably much worse.

"The situation is not only very bad, but getting worse, with more and more paths being blocked and lost to developments.

"At the moment Blackburn with Darwen has about 43 per cent of footpaths which are easy to use but at one time that would have been 100 per cent.

"It is not that fewer people are using the footpaths but because some of them are becoming obstructed, overgrown or waterlogged.

"When people go out for a Sunday afternoon walk they don't want to be fighting their way through mud and overgrowth. But the council refuses to do anything. It takes action to support landowners. The law clearly states that the highway authorities are responsible for ensuring that all public paths can be used, but Blackburn council prefers to look after the interests of the landowners.

"Government bodies are always telling us that we should be getting more exercise and that walking is one of the best forms of exercise.

"It is unfortunate that, when we have so much lovely countryside near to our homes, we cannot enjoy our legal right to walk on public paths."

Councillor Andy Kay, Executive Member for Regeneration said: "The Performance Indicator for public footpaths is a narrow measure of the state of the borough's footpaths.

"It only covers 5% of the Borough's network and does not take into account the significant investment by the Council along with major schemes to open up footpaths and bridleways through it's partnership agreement for the West Pennine Moors."

The Open Spaces Society, founded in 1865, is Britain's oldest national conservation body.