ORPA's

[wilderness]

How does everbody check these out? There seems to be alot of them. What is the advice for a recce? The situation appears to be the same for these as it was for the old rupps, before they were all shut, causing mass chaos / bad feeling on the few remaining byways, what with everone having to travel much further to drive/ride a few tracks. The byways now are overused, consistantly leading to TRO's and closures, maybe that was the idea.

[Paul Woodward]

They are looked after by the highways dept rather than the rights of way dept. You can ask them about the status of a lane the same as you would the r.o.w. people.
My personal view is if it's on the list of streets, ie a road maintained at public expense, then it's ok to drive. Not always physically possible though.
As you say another minefield to explore!

[spacehopper]

To check them out you need to go to the council Highways Dept (not the Rights of Way Dept) - their records are not generally as accessible as the ROW Definitive Map so its best to phone and make an appointment. They are public documents so they have to let you see them but its generally at their convenience.
Its very unlikely that any council will give a definitive answer as ORPAs are a bit of a grey area. But, if they are on the List of Streets (or List of Highways Maintainable at Public Expense) then they almost certainly vehicular. However for example North Yorkshire will state that being on the List of Streets is not conclusive proof that an ORPA has vehicular rights. County Durham, on the other hand once told me that if its on the List of Streets then its driveable. But that was kind of 'off the record' and they wouldn't put it in writing just to cover their own asses!! Northumberland pretty much take the same line but again won't confirm in writing.

So the definitive answer is ORPAs are driveable....probably!!!

[Rossko]

The root of the confusion is the nature of the List of Streets. It's a list of publicly maintainable routes ; the ones the Highway Authority are responsible for fixing. That tells you nothing about the public rights over it.

It's worth understanding why they can be assumed to be vehicular: the authority has had a duty since the 1950s to record all footpaths and bridleways on the Definitive Map.

A reasonable person would check a route really is on the LoS (Ordnance Survey might make a mistake about an ORPA), then check that it isn't on the DM, that is important since it is perfectly possible for a route to be on both lists. If it isn't on Definitive Map, then reason as follows;

It is a public route, because it is maintained at public expense.

It's not a footpath or bridleway (unless the authority has dramatically failed in its duty, and you've no reason to think that?)

It's certainly not a Restricted Byway, because they only ever exist on the DM

All that's left is public carriageway.