report to the council\u2019s<\/a> public rights of way and commons registration sub-committee said: \u201cThe Department of the Environment’s circular relating to public rights of way advises that once an order has been advertised, local authorities are expected to make every effort to resolve objections and secure their withdrawal.<\/p>\n\u201cHowever, in this instance, the objector has clearly stated his intention to object to the order on several occasions and, given the objector\u2019s long history of complaints and extensive email correspondence which has previously covered the points raised but where queries by officers to these points have gone unanswered, officers take the view that further attempts would be unsuccessful and only delay the submission to the Secretary of State.\u201d<\/p>\n
The grounds for the resident\u2019s objections include flooding concerns and antisocial behaviour on the proposed new route alongside the pavilion where people \u2018wear face masks\u2019.<\/p>\n
The report to the committee said council officers had no evidence that the path flooded where the neighbour claimed and that the diverted path would be safer because it removed the need to negotiate the car park.<\/p>\n
Parish council chairman Andy Alsop told the meeting that they inherited the public right of way from the previous parish council.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cUnfortunately the play area was built all over it.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the time it wasn\u2019t picked up but we now have a problem with a particular resident who wishes to have it reinstated.<\/p>\n
![\"Map](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/0_Patchway-Common-Footpath-Diversion-Map.jpg\")
Map showing the current and proposed footpaths on Patchway Common. The solid black line A-B is the existing path, the dotted black line C-D-E-B is the proposed route (Image: South Gloucestershire Council)<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the only field we have in our parish and also open space in north Bradley Stoke and it is widely used.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have youth football, we have Brownies.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur plan will be, if we can, to reinstate the play area equipment which has been removed in the last month due to its unsafe nature and we felt it could have been a problem to very young children trapping fingers etc.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are getting estimates for replacement kit and ideas for what we would like to do in that area.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have quite substantial funding to make this happen, we will be seeking grants as well, but at the moment we are looking for designs and asking people what they would really like.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe may incorporate a small basketball area which could incorporate some small five-a-side goals and a tarmac area, but nothing can happen until we can get this public right of way moved.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe new public right of way would run just behind the car park and then along the side of the parish hall which then picks up to roughly where it was originally.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not moving very far but it has to be moved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cllr Keith Cranney (Conservative, Stoke Gifford) said: \u201cThe aspirations of the parish council can only be commended \u2013 the amount of kids we now have who are crying out for facilities like basketball in that area.\u201d<\/p>\n
Public rights of way officer Lindsay Saunders said: \u201cOnce it\u2019s submitted to the Secretary of State, it\u2019s out of our hands and we don\u2019t have any control over the timetable, so you might be waiting quite a long time yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sub-committee agreed with officer recommendations to refer it to the Environment Secretary asking for the diversion order to be confirmed.<\/p>\n
The parish council leases the playing field from owners South Gloucestershire Council<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A footpath needs to be diverted around the playgroundPatchway Common(Image: Google Earth) Hopes to expand a play area…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[15721,381,748,393,4884,23340,285,10299,10302,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-199067","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-bradley-stoke","9":"tag-bristol","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-patchway","14":"tag-politics","15":"tag-south-gloucestershire","16":"tag-south-gloucestershire-council","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114714087584359363","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Aerial](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/0_Patchway-Common.jpg\")
Patchway Common(Image: Google Earth)<\/p>\n