No to right of way appeal on path

By dnichols

SITTING outside their quiet, secluded home, elderly brother and sister Archie and Ivy Peppard say they can never quite relax.

Although their farmhouse in High Ham is more than a quarter-of-a-mile away from a main road and tucked beside a wood, the track outside it is a public right of way.

The pensioners have been fighting for 36 years to get the footpath at Turn Hill Farm taken off maps.

They have just found out they have lost their latest attempt to get Somerset County Council to review new evidence, which they say proves the path has always been private.

Retired farmers Archie, aged 84, and Ivy, 78, are deteriorating in health and want to live their final years in peace, without the worry of wondering who is outside their front door.

For the past 15 years, their campaign has been championed by Marlene Masters, 72, of Yarlington, near Wincanton. The former member of the Institute of Public Rights of Way Officers is a self-taught specialist research consultant in rights of way issues. She has assisted in winning a case at the High Court and said her work had won the respect of many QCs.

A new application for a Definitive Map Modification Order was submitted in April with new historical mapping evidence from the 19th Century, which shows the Peppard's path labelled as both accommodation or occupation road, which they say proves it was private.

The trio claim the council added the footpath to maps in 1959 without consulting the family, which meant they did not have the opportunity to lodge an objection.

The siblings have lived at the home, which their grandfather John Pappard built beside Aller wood, all their lives and said the first they knew about the path was in 1973, when walkers tried to go down their track.

Mr Peppard, who is almost deaf, said: "We are determined to keep fighting it and we are not going away. We had no trouble before it went down as a footpath on the maps."

On 28 July, Mrs Masters took a petition to County Hall in Taunton, calling for the council to give priority to their case. But these pleas were rejected under a council policy that puts new applications first in line to be considered.

The pair accept it is not their first application but hoped they could jump the queue because of their ailing health and "new evidence".

The petition was accepted but last week the council's rights of way team leader Denise Chandler wrote to Mrs Masters stating it would not change the processes. She said representations can be made to the Secretary of State if the matter had not been dealt with within 12 months.

Mrs Masters said she is looking at article six of the Human Rights Act to see if she can get legal aid for the pair to get a judicial review at the High Court.

She said: "I think it is disgusting the way these two have been treated. It is wrong and is a case of David versus Goliath, but I think we can sort this out."

A council spokesman said: "A petition was handed to the council and a letter has been sent to Mr and Mrs Peppard saying there is no change. They do have the right to make representatives to the Secretary of State if it has not been dealt with within 12 months."