A WINDERMERE man's campaign to move a fence he claims has blocked a treasured path to a pond hit a legal barrier this week.

The Lake District National Park Authority rejected an application from Dr Geoffrey Fryer to officially designate the route in Windermere's Elleray Woods as a footpath.

Dr Fryer wanted to see the path marked on the authority's definitive map which would have forced landowners Windermere Parish Council to relocate the fence. The move would have ended a long-running dispute with the parish council over the fence, which he maintains was accidentally put in the wrong place when it was repaired in around 1994.

"It's a very nice path," said Mr Fryer. "It's one of the nicest bits of the woods and this chunk of land has been lost to us."

But LDNPA's implementation committee ruled that legally it had no powers to declare a public path since the deeds to the land enshrined public access across Elleray Woods in its entirety since 1943.

"This wood is open to the public we are going through all this palaver for nothing," said committee chairman Robin Yates, adding that the only reason it had come before the authority was because it had to respond to claims for footpath rights.

"This has nothing to do with us," added member Ronnie Calvin. "Let the people that own it sort it out with the people who put the fence up."

Speaking after the meeting, Dr Fryer said he would be asking the LDNPA to "quote him chapter and verse" on the statute that had guided its decision - which he believed was a grey area of law. As for pursuing the issue with the parish council, he said he had not yet decided what to do but confirmed that he was not going to let the matter drop.

May 29, 2003 15:00