County Durham Local Access Forum

Next meeting

Monday 19 April 2010, 6.00pm (venue to be confirmed)

Background

The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 requires that all highway authorities in England and Wales set up 'local access forums' to advise local authorities and the Countryside Agency or Countryside Council for Wales on access issues including Open access in County Durham and the Rights of Way Improvement Plan.

Each forum consists of between 12 and 20 individuals with specific interests in, or knowledge of, issues relating to access. There is a fantastic range of expertise within the LAF, with both user and landowner interests being represented fairly.

County Durham Local Access Forum

Originally, two forums were established in County Durham.

The North Pennines LAF covered the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty to the west of the A68 and included part of Northumberland. 

The County Durham LAF covered the remaining area of the county from the A68, east to the Heritage Coast. The two forums were established in February 2004.

However, in April 2005, it was decided to retain only one LAF for the whole of County Durham, and one for Northumberland. 

The County Durham forum meets several times a year and discuss various access issues. The meetings are open to the public and minutes of previous meetings are available below or from the forum secretary.  The annual reports of the forum outline its activities and include details of members.

Local Access Forum minutes and annual reports

You can download Adobe Acrobat Reader from the Adobe website.  Please note that the Adobe Access Plug-in enables visually impaired users to read Adobe PDF documents.

Minutes

Local Access Forum minutes January 2010 (5 pages,35kb)

LAF Minutes September 2009 (8 pages,110kb)

Local Access Forum Minutes April 2009 (6 pages,28kb)

Local Access Forum minutes January 2009 (6 pages,38kb)

Local Access Forum minutes September 2008 (8 pages,44kb)

Local Access Forum minutes June 2008 (6 pages,35kb)

Local Access Forum minutes March 2008 (5 pages,35kb)

Local Access Forum minutes November 2007 (5 pages,31kb)

Local Access Forum minutes August 2007 (25 pages,178kb)

Local Access Forum minutes April 2007 (4 pages,30kb)

Local Access Forum minutes January 2007 (4 pages,31kb)

Local Access Forum minutes September 2006 (5 pages,34kb)

Local Access Forum minutes April 2006 (5 pages,17kb)

Local Access Forum minutes January 2006 (5 pages,17kb)

Local Access Forum minutes September 2005 (5 pages,17kb)

Local Access Forum minutes July 2005 (5 pages,17kb)

Annual reports

Local Access Forum Annual Report 2008-09 (11 pages,3579kb)

Local Access Forum Annual Report 2007-08 (8 pages,317kb)

Local Access Forum Annual Report 2006-07 (6 pages,260kb)

Local Access Forum Annual Report 2005-06 (18 pages,761kb)

Local Access Forum Annual Report 2005 (10 pages,1137kb)

Forum members

• Geoff Hughes(Chair)
• Steve Scoffin (Vice Chair)
• Roger Cornwell
• Bob Pendlebury
• Brian Hodgson
• David Maughan
• Grace Wali
• Marilyn Gibson
• Alan Dougherty
• Neil Gander
• Jim Welch
• Gary Haley
• Robert Kirton-Darling
• Andy Turner (Councillor)
• Neil Foster (Councillor)
• Chris Bloor

Terms of reference

 County Durham Local Access Forum Terms of Reference (3 pages,12kb)

Regional newsletter

Regional Newsletter of the North East Local Access Forums (8 pages,984kb)

Any questions about the forum should be directed to Delyth Roberts (Secretary to the Durham Local Access Forum).

A detailed list of England's 81 Local Access Forums can be found on the Natural England, Local Access Forums web site.

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