
County Durham Local Access Forum
Next Meeting
Monday 29th September, 6.00pm at County Hall, Durham.Background
The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 required that all highway authorities in England and Wales set up 'local access forums' to advise both local authorities and the Countryside Agency or Countryside Council for Wales access issues including Open Access in County Durham and the forthcoming 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 evenly.
County Durham Local Access Forum
Originally, two forums were established within 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 Local Access Forum (LAF) for the whole of County Durham, and one for Northumberland. This web page is concerned only with the activities of the current County Durham Local Access Forum.The forum meets several times per year and discusses 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 vision impaired users to read Adobe PDF documents.Minutes
June 2008 Minutes (6 pages, 35kb)
March 2008 Minutes (5 pages, 35kb)
November 2007 Minutes (5 pages, 31kb)
August 2007 Minutes (25 pages, 178kb)
April 2007 Minutes (4 pages, 30kb)
January 2007 Minutes (4 pages, 31kb)
September 2006 Minutes (5 pages, 34kb)
April 2006 Minutes (5 pages, 17kb)
January 2006 Minutes (5 pages, 17.1 kb)
September 2005 Minutes (5 pages, 18 kb)
July 2005 Minutes (5 pages, 61kb)
Annual Reports
LAF annual report 2007-08 (8 pages, 317kb)
LAF annual report 2006-07 (6 pages, 260kb)
LAF annual report 2005-06 (18 pages, 761kb)
LAF annual report 2005 (9 pages, 1.1 mb)
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
Terms of Reference
Contact Details
Any questions about the forum should be directed to the secretary:Barry Charlton
Secretary to the Durham Local Access Forum
Corporate Services
Durham County Council
County Hall
Durham
Telephone: 0191 3834916
A detailed list of England's 81 Local Access Forums can be found on the Natural England, Local Access Forums webpage

