UKC

As per title and as per image. 

Is it to do with Little Plum out of the Beano? 

Unmade , ie not surfaced.

Unmade.

Ta. Is it a legal right of way?  Reason I ask is a farmer has installed some massive, padlocked, iron gates completely blocking access, so just checking whether he is entitled.

Not necessarily; it just shows that there is a path. What map are you looking at? It looks like a fairly detailed map: 1:10k?

For RoW, you'd need to check the definitive map, help by the local authority. Some of these are online.

Maybe it does just mean um as in the person walked up to the gates and went ummmm.

More seriously captain paranoia covers it. Regardless of path type the only definitive answer is to go to the local authority.

My mate found it, screen shot below. 

If 41 and 46 are the rights of way on your definitive local map then maybe not. Check the definitive map for your area - should be available from your local council. You could also contact the rights of way office and send picture and grid ref and get them to check.

Think I’ll be doing that. Ta. 

Before you do that why not just look on the relevant OS map? You can look on Geograph and get up to date maps for any square. You can keep increasing the scale as well.

41 and 46 shown as footpaths with legal right of way on OS map.  Beech Walk is a bridleway.

That image looks very much like a snapshot from an online definitive map (local authority-held legal record of public rights of way). So those unmade paths are probably not PROWs.

https://footpathmap.co.uk/map/ can *sometimes* save you the aggro of finding your way through your local council's online text adventure game.

The definitive map defines the PROWs, and they're generally numbered to identify them, so it's exactly the reverse - it looks very much like they are.

The advice to check the OS map above also has it a bit backwards - if the OS and the definitive map did happen to disagree it would be the OS map that's wrong - the definitive map is, well, definitive.

The only wiggle room in that is that the online version of the map (where there is one) isn't guaranteed to be up to date.

It miiight also be worth getting in touch with your local ramblers.  They're often quite good at mithering the local authority to do something about this kind of thing.  Sometimes Captain Mainwaring is the hero that you need.

A quick google suggests... http://www.wigananddistrictramblers.org.uk/

Totally agree although you can generally get quite a long way pointing at the OS map and saying "but look...!" to a slightly mardy farmer. Last time this happened to me, the farmer wasn't mardy at all but just explained how they knew it was bizarre that there are a few hundred metres of marked public footpath out the back of his farm on all the OS maps, but it didn't go anywhere so they hadn't kept the path clear in decades. So OS might have been sort of right, but in a very pointless way!

The Path (um) will have been mapped by OS as being obvious on the ground - you can see it in Google Maps satellite view. It isn't a right of way but will have been commonly used by people as the most practical route.

The council's online footpath map isn't accurate enough to show which side of the fence the footpath 41 is. It does show it crossing into the wood before joining footpath 46 but it also shows it going through St Marie's church. My local council have always been very helpful with queries or reported blockages.

The screenshot above doesn't show it, the map does.  You just need to zoom in a bit more.

You can zoom in all you want but it isn't the definitive map.

Ahhh Wigan Council.

I thought I'd have an exploratory new years day walk across a footpath that was new to me, aimed to cross the fields from Golborne to Abram, perhaps pick up the canal to form a loop back.  Stay local and all that.

Found the footpath blocked by a locked heras fence at a grumpy farm that had also removed all the footpath signs converging on it  PRIVATE signs etc. Another locked gate across a disused rail spur, BEWARE TRAINS. An enormous rubble berm. And extremely muddy field with crops sown fight over where the path would be. Ditches lacking the footbridges marked on the map. I stoically battled on, circumventing all the obstacles until I was blocked by the West Coast Main Line, with no bridge or tunnel. B*llocks.

Wrote a submission on the council website to inform them that the right of way was obstructed, unmaintained and had signs removed (nothing to mention the discontinuity on the official docs, did mention "across the railway" from one farm to the other) and asked them to keep me updated with their resolution.

The reply came back a month later saying that it hasn't been possible to cross the tracks there since the electrification so they would remove the right of way from their records.

It crossed my mind whether that was actually legal and worth bothering the Ramblers about but instead took it as the final sign that I needed to move far far away for the sake of my mental health.

The bill for the council tax here in farfarawayland has just dropped through the letterbox and this is an excellent reminder of what I've escaped. Numbed the shock to my wallet excellently.

Good luck.

All the OS maps I have contain a little disclaimer somewhere on the edge stating "the depiction of a path or route does not guarantee a public right of way" or words to that effect. As others have said, the local authority council has the definitive list.

There's a bridle way marked from Cockly Beck to the top of Crinkle Crags in a large smooth curve yet on the ground nothing, just a series of small bracken topped crags.

On that screenshot I think the path(um) label refers to the grey dashed line (OS mapped feature on the ground) not the pink line (definitive PROW added to the map by the council)

Yes, I'm well aware that OS don't claim to be the definitive source for RoW's but they're far more convenient as a quick check than getting a local council's definitive map. Especially if you have one to hand or access to them online. Anyone who tries riding a horse or cycling a route purely because it's shown on an OS map deserves what's coming. Just a glance at the terrain on Long Stand/Crinkles shown on the map ought to be enough. Alas, common sense seems to be in short supply in some folks. It would be interesting to know why historically that particular route is shown - did the farmer used to have a crag-capable pony to round up his flock? I can't see any mine workings at the sudden end point and it's not likely to be a between-dales pack pony route.

The key question here is not whether "path (um)" is a PRoW - I'm certain it isn't. The OS agrees with the online version of the definitive map, and the existing PRoWs Standish 41 and 46 don't follow the lines of historical paths. I doubt therefore that "path (um)" could be a PRoW as yet unrecorded on the online map; and I think 41 in particular is relatively new. But all of this is a bit of a red herring to your purpose, because the key question is: where is this gate? Can you pinpoint it for me, plz?

No. Is it not the online version of the definitive map though? (Which I agree is not itself definitive if that's what you're getting at.)

Not relevant to my reply either way, however.  You said:

You're mistaken about that, yes it is.  If you zoom in a bit.

I agree.

Will take photos tomorrow and give more details. 

Since my mate showed me that arcgis site I’ve found another two paths, marked with a formal numbers, that have been totally obstructed. One of them Id happily ignore because it goes through a place that roe deer hole up, the other is where some expensive houses have been built. Interesting stuff all the same. 

Thanks; can sort it if you can give location for the obstruction.

Where I used to be there was a footpath which was still maintained including having new signs putting up along its length.

Shame that the A12 Colchester bypass had been built through it 20 years or so earlier. There was one sign encouraging people to plunge down the embankment and try their luck.

I was a bit bored 

You must have been! There isn't much use for satellite maps in the world of PRoWs. The historical imagery in Google Earth and Street View sometimes comes in handy usually during enforcement, but otherwise I rarely even touch Google Maps.

On the other hand... If, willgriggsonfire, you could zoom in on Google Maps and drop a pin where you think the obstruction is, then give me the co-ords, that'd save you the bother of re-visiting the site.

I’ll try. I’ve walked past it every morning at 5.30 at the latest, in a mad dash to try and photo a barn owl. I’ve not even seen a barn owl to photograph. I’m goosed on the way back at 8.30 so forget. 

Edit:  the pin marks the gate. GR. 555096

Excellent (not the absence of the barn owl - hope you spot it soon - but the location).

So the access from Standish 46 to Standish 41 is blocked by the gate - is that right?

i.e. ignoring "path (um)", the gate obstructs passage off the right of way leading SW-NE onto the path that leads NW alongside the wood before heading NNE to School Lane.

If so, then yes, that's a serious obstruction (and if there's no waymarker pointing you off 46 to 41 I'd regard that as a fault too).

Can you please report it to us using the online form or email here: http://www.peakandnorthern.org.uk/pathcheckers/

There's currently no inspector in Standish parish, but there are for the surrounding parishes in Shevington, Haigh, and Wigan. When you report it to us, one of them will bob round and have a look at it, and see what can be done.

Will do and thanks. 

My guess is that the farmer is annoyed at the amount of dog walkers and poo in his hay/sillage field so has took matters into his own hands. 

Could be. If it's a hayfield then "path (um)" is probably what's annoying him most - people taking the short route across the field that's shown on OS/Google Maps, rather than sticking to the PRoW. Either way, it's resolvable.

There's been an awful lot of this over the last year, partly owing to a massive increase in people seeking local space to walk in, and partly owing to landowners using the opportunity of a lockdown drain on LA resources in order to block PRoWs they'd rather didn't exist.