A Public Footpath Crosses My Field: Can It Still Be Developed?

A public footpath is a highway. In law the word covers every route the public has a right to use, not only roads. The Department for Transport puts it plainly in its guidance on closing highways: all public rights of way, whether open to vehicles, horse riders, cyclists or pedestrians, are highways. The ground under the path still belongs to you. What the public holds is the right to pass along it.

So a right of way does not disappear because the land is sold, farmed differently or given planning permission. It stays until a legal order changes it, and Parliament gave councils a specific power to make such orders where development needs a path moved.

So the practical question is not whether a path stops development but what happens to it: it is kept on its line, moved, which the law calls a diversion, or, rarely, closed, which the law calls stopping up. National policy in the August 2026 framework expects schemes to protect and enhance public rights of way, including through suitable diversions agreed with the highway authority.

The proper term for the whole family is public rights of way, and the rights each kind carries are those the definitive map records.

For a bridleway, the difference lies in what a replacement route has to offer: a bridleway diverted onto a narrow path between garden fences would not serve horse riders, so the layout has to carry a wider, safer route. A byway open to all traffic is different again, because it is a road in law, and changing it goes to the Secretary of State under section 247, described later in this guide.

None of these is a private right of way. A right reserved to a neighbouring farm in a past conveyance is a private easement, a matter between the two owners. Our guide to access and ransom strips explains easements, and why a public footpath, however well used, gives no right to drive onto a site.

Every county council and unitary council, as surveying authority, keeps a definitive map, which shows where each public right of way runs, and a definitive statement, which describes it in words and may record its width and any limits such as gates. Defra's Rights of Way Circular 1/09, its guidance to local authorities, explains that the map and statement are legally conclusive evidence of the existence of the highways of the description shown. That conclusive effect comes from section 56 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

Conclusive means that if the map shows a footpath across your field, nobody can argue at a planning committee or in court that the path does not exist or runs somewhere else. The only way to change it is a legal order. For anyone planning homes, this is useful as well as limiting: the line on the map is the line the layout has to respect, and it is known from the start.

Two qualifications matter. First, the map is conclusive about what it shows, not about what it leaves out. The Circular notes, at paragraph 2.2, that the map does not rule out higher rights which are not recorded over ways which are recorded, so a route shown as a footpath could, on old evidence, turn out to carry bridleway rights. Second, the map is not frozen. Section 53 of the 1981 Act requires the authority to keep it under continuous review, and paragraph 4.6 of the Circular explains that the Act enables any person to apply for an order modifying the map, for example to add a path that has been used by the public but never recorded.

How to look at the map for your own land, and why a walking map or online app is not a substitute for it, is covered in our guide to checking exactly what land you own.

A path can be added to the definitive map in two broad ways. One is long use: under section 31 of the Highways Act 1980, a way the public has used as of right and without interruption for a full period of 20 years is presumed to have been dedicated as a highway, unless there is sufficient evidence that the owner had no intention to dedicate it. The other is historical evidence: old maps, inclosure awards and similar documents showing a public route that was simply never recorded.

For the historical claims, the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 set a cut-off date. After it, many unrecorded historic footpaths and bridleways would be extinguished, which means ended in law. The date was first 1 January 2026. For England, regulations in force from 17 November 2023 replaced it with 1 January 2031, the latest date the Act allows. The current text of section 56 of the 2000 Act on legislation.gov.uk, shown as up to date to 27 September 2026, still reads 1 January 2031.

The government has since decided to scrap the deadline altogether. On 26 December 2024 it announced that it would repeal the 2031 cut-off date for recording historic rights of way, and Defra's own blog post of 3 January 2025 records its reply to a reader in August 2025, which said the cut-off would be repealed when parliamentary time allowed. Repeal needs an Act of Parliament, and the text of section 56, up to date to 27 September 2026, showed no repeal.

Owners have long had a way to guard against new claims based on use. Section 31(6) of the Highways Act 1980 lets an owner deposit with the council a map of the land and a statement of the ways the owner admits are public, and then lodge declarations that no further way has been dedicated. In England the declaration is made in a form set by regulations, and it must be renewed within 20 years of the deposit or the last declaration to keep its protection. Circular 1/09 describes these deposits as a way for landowners formally to acknowledge the rights of way across their land, and the council must keep a register of them. A deposit protects against future claims from use; it does not remove a path that is already public.

Keeping the path is often the easiest route through the planning system, because it removes the need for any order and turns the path into an asset. A footpath running through a village green, an orchard or a play area becomes the walking link from the new homes to the school or the shop, which is exactly what the national framework asks for. Its policy TR8 tells development proposals to take opportunities to extend, link or improve existing routes, including through improved access to green spaces and the countryside and through accessible, safe and convenient links to services and facilities.

Where a path has to move, the government's advice is specific about where it should go. Circular 1/09, at paragraph 7.8, says any alternative alignment should avoid the use of estate roads for the purpose wherever possible, and that preference should be given to the use of made up estate paths through landscaped or open space areas away from vehicular traffic. A diversion that sends walkers along a pavement beside a busy estate road invites objections. One that gives them a better surfaced path through a new green corridor is far more likely to be accepted.

Stopping up removes a public right with nothing in its place, so it draws the most objections from walkers, riders and parish councils, and is usually used only where another public route nearby already does the same job.

A material consideration is the planning term for any matter a council must weigh when deciding an application. Circular 1/09 says at paragraph 7.2 that the effect of development on a public right of way is a material consideration in deciding planning applications. It does not mean a field with a path cannot be approved.

The question is asked early. The Circular, at paragraph 7.4, records that the government's guidance on validating planning applications required all public rights of way crossing or adjoining the proposed development site to be marked on the plan submitted with a full planning application, and that councils needed to ensure that all rights of way affected by the development are identified. The same paragraph asks planning authorities to take into account any pending application to add a path to the definitive map, any change the highway authority is itself proposing, and ways not yet recorded at all, so a claimed or unrecorded path can surface at this stage. The national framework, in policy TR1, also expects plans to align with the highway authority's rights of way improvement plan, its published plan for improving the local path network.

The weight a path carries depends on how the scheme treats it. A layout that keeps the route open, gives it a green setting and links it to the village is a benefit the council can count in the scheme's favour. A layout that squeezes it into an alley between fences hands objectors a sound complaint.

Section 257 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 lets the local planning authority make an order stopping up or diverting a footpath, bridleway or restricted byway if it is satisfied that it is necessary to do so in order to enable development to be carried out in accordance with planning permission. Since 2013, subsection (1A) has also allowed the order to be made once an application for planning permission has been made, so the path and the planning can run side by side. The order itself still cannot be confirmed until the permission exists.

1. Talk to the rights of way officer early. The layout is drawn with the path in mind, and the proposed new route is discussed with the highway authority before the planning application is finalised. Circular 1/09 encourages exactly this early liaison, saying at paragraph 7.6 that disadvantages to the public can be minimised by it.
2. Submit the planning application showing the path. The plans mark the existing route and any proposed diversion, so the council and the public see both.
3. Ask the council to make a section 257 order. This can be done once the application has been made, under subsection (1A), or after permission is granted. The council decides whether to make the order, testing whether moving the path is necessary to let the permitted development be built.
4. Notice is given. Section 259 applies Schedule 14 to the 1990 Act, which sets out how the order is publicised before it can be confirmed. The council's notice states the period for objections, and anyone may object or make representations during it.
5. If nobody objects, the council confirms it. An unopposed order can be confirmed by the authority that made it, under section 259.
6. If objections are not withdrawn, it goes to the Planning Inspectorate. Only the council can submit an opposed order. The Inspectorate decides whether it is dealt with by written representations, a hearing or a public inquiry, and an inspector decides on behalf of the Secretary of State.
7. Confirmation, and the new route. An order made under subsection (1A) cannot be confirmed unless the confirming authority is satisfied that planning permission has been granted. Once confirmed, the new route is provided as the order sets out, and the old line closes from the time the order specifies, which section 259 says cannot be earlier than confirmation.
8. Only then is the old line built on. Until the order takes effect, the existing path must stay open and usable.

The order may also require the new path to be built or improved, and may require someone named in it, usually the developer, to pay towards the cost. Section 257(2) allows for both. That is how a new surfaced path through the open space is secured as part of the same legal step that closes the old one.

Under section 257, the merits of the housing scheme are not reopened. Once the council has granted planning permission, the question at the order stage is whether moving the path is necessary for that permission to be built, and whether the disadvantages to path users are so great that the order should not be confirmed.

Section 119 is the landowner's power, and it can be used without any planning application. The Highways Act lets the council divert a path where it is expedient in the interests of the owner, lessee or occupier of the land crossed, or of the public. Before confirming, the decision maker must be satisfied that the path will not be substantially less convenient to the public, and must weigh the effect on public enjoyment of the path as a whole, the effect on other land served by the existing route, and the effect of the new route on the land it crosses. The ends of the path can only move to another point on the same or a connected highway that is substantially as convenient to the public.

One detail in Circular 1/09 often catches owners out. Paragraph 5.25 records the Planning Inspectorate's advice that, when judging whether the replacement is substantially less convenient, the existing route is assumed to be available to the public to its full legal extent. A path that has become overgrown, ploughed out or awkward to find is judged as if it were open and in good order, so its present condition is no argument for moving it.

Section 247 is used where a byway open to all traffic or a road has to change. The Department for Transport's guidance says an applicant must show they have, or are in the process of getting, planning permission, and that it aims to process orders where there are no objections within 13 weeks of receiving all necessary information.

There is no national timetable for the council stage. The published timescales are these.

The Inspectorate's figures run from the valid date, which its guidance on objecting to a public right of way order defines as the point when all the required documentation has been received. The same guidance notes that there is no deadline for a council to submit an opposed order, so the time between the end of the objection period and the valid date varies from council to council.

Because subsection (1A) lets the order be advertised while the application is still being decided, this time can run alongside the planning rather than after it. Our guide to how long planning takes sets out the other workstreams.

Two points from that decision are worth holding on to. The inspector cited Circular 1/09 for the principle that, once planning permission has been granted for a development affecting a right of way, there must be good reasons to justify a decision not to confirm an order. And he checked first that the development was not substantially complete, because section 257 is a power to enable development to be carried out, not to tidy up after it. The case concerned commercial units rather than homes, but the law and the inspector's reasoning are the same for a housing scheme, and the lesson is that the order should be in hand before building reaches the path.

Ploughing has its own rule. Under section 134 of the same Act, as Circular 1/09 explains at paragraph 6.23, the occupier of farmland may plough a cross-field footpath or bridleway where it is not reasonably convenient to avoid it, but must then make the surface good and mark the line on the ground within set periods. Field edge paths, restricted byways and byways open to all traffic may not be ploughed at all, and paragraph 6.26 confirms that an occupier who fails to reinstate can be prosecuted.

The same care applies to new structures. Circular 1/09 says at paragraph 6.7 that stiles, gates and other structures on a public right of way are unlawful obstructions unless they are recorded on the definitive statement or lawfully authorised. The highway authority can authorise one under section 147 only on a footpath or bridleway crossing farmland, and only where it is needed to keep livestock in or out; a gate across a bridleway must leave at least 5 feet of width.

There is a planning reason for care too. An owner who closes or moves a path informally, hoping development will follow, gives objectors a grievance and the council a complaint to investigate, and can colour how the community sees a later planning application for the same field.

If a path genuinely causes problems for farming, the owner's route is the section 119 diversion described above, applied for through the council. Since 2003, section 119(6A) has required the decision maker to take into account any material provision of the area's rights of way improvement plan, so a new route that serves the plan's aims, such as a better link to the village or a safer crossing, starts on a stronger footing than one that simply moves the path out of the way.

For most fields, a footpath affects where the homes go rather than whether they can be built. A path along a hedge line is often easy to keep in a green edge. One cutting diagonally across the middle is more of a design puzzle, and a straighter line through new open space can suit walkers better than the original.

• Is the path on the definitive map, and does the statement record a width?
• Is it a footpath, a bridleway, a restricted byway or a byway open to all traffic?
• Does it run along an edge of the field or across the middle?
• Where does it lead: to the village, the school, a church, another path?
• Is there any sign of a well used route that is not on the map?
• Have you ever deposited a map and statement with the council under section 31(6)?

Those are questions only you and the records can answer together, and none of them needs to be settled before a conversation. A desktop review looks at the constraints a scheme would face from records and maps, and a path on the definitive map is one of them. With us, every cost of the planning work is ours, at our own risk, and if planning is not achieved you keep your land and owe nothing. You keep using the field as you do now until completion, and we do not contact the council, your neighbours or anyone else about your land without your agreement.

A footpath is also one of the things owners worry about most when they first wonder whether their land has potential, and our guide to whether your field is worth anything to a housebuilder puts it alongside the other factors that matter. If you would like a straight answer about your own field, path and all, a free desktop review of your land is the simplest place to start.