KEIGHLEY campaigners have branded Bradford Council ‘not fit for purpose’ after it refused to reveal how many local footpaths were blocked by landowners.

The council turned down a Freedom of Information request from BANDAG because it would take staff too long to find the information.

BANDAG – the Braithwaite and North Dean Action Group – wanted to know how long each path had been blocked, when the blockage been reported, and whether enforcement action had been taken.

But the council keeps such information on individual files for each footpath, rather than one master list, meaning staff would have to spend many hours of work trawling hundreds of files for the district’s 1,100km of footpaths.

Danny Jackson, the council’s countryside and rights-of-way manager, responded: “We are aware that there are a number of blockages on the public rights of way network within the Bradford District. Some of these are temporary, some longer-term.

“In order to give you what you ask for in your information request would require staff to trawl through every individual path file (several hundred) to extract the relevant dates the blockages can to attention, what action we took, how long this took what the outcome was.”

Mr Jackson pointed out that the council did not currently hold an up-to-date survey of the full footpath network.

Mr Jackson agreed to provide information on specific paths if BANDAG knew they were blocked.

BANDAG chairman June Forsyth said Bradford Council, as the local highway authority, had a legal duty to record and keep open rights-of-way.

She said: “Apparently these most basic of questions could only be obtained with great difficulty and would be too time consuming to collate.

“This surely brings into question competence and if the department is fit for purpose. It should be a worry that a system that could be set up so simply.”

BANDAG said the “dire situation” must be remedied by the council, with full commitment to identify, conserve and enhance public rights-of-way.

Coun Alex Ross-Shaw, Bradford Council’s Executive Member for Regeneration, Planning and Transport, this week said BANDAG’s information request was wide-ranging and not limited to a particular area or time period, so would take a significant amount of time for the council to respond fully.

He said: “In our response we suggested that if BANDAG would narrow their request to a particular area or time period, we would endeavour to give them a more detailed response.

“With the limited resources we have within the Countryside and Rights of Way team, staff have to prioritise activities such as pursuing enforcement of unlawful blockages as we are currently doing on a path in Keighley.”

“Since 2009 the rights of way team has lost its dedicated admin support and Definitive Map officer post due to government cuts and austerity measures.'

“The collation of a central database for information about the rights of way network is the kind of work area that posts such as these would have covered.

'We are currently intending to re-structure the team so that the Definitive Map role can be reinstated within the existing resource but this means we will have fewer staff doing other things within this service.”

“I'm afraid this is the reality of life when our budgets have been cut so severely.”