The Hole in the Wall Walking Group

Road and footpath closures

There are two issues, those affecting how to drive to the start point and those relating to the walking route.

Most of our walks are in Derbyshire, South Yorkshire and Staffordshire. Information about footpaths in those areas are covered by the relevant County Council but additional resources include Sheffield City Council, The Peak Park national park authority (PDNPA) , DDDC (Derbyshire Dales District Council).

Firstly some general guidelines and relevant online resources, futher down are some examples and finally any recent specific closures in our region that are drawn to my attention.

Road closures

When planning a walk it’s possible to check the driving route for planned roadworks here https://one.network

Traffic news

Another issue relates to current incidents.  When some expected attendees to a walk have not arrived by the start time they could have been delayed by a road traffic accident or other congestion.  The one.network roadworks map also covers those circumstances. It will take a while for news of a live incident to be reflected on that map but it’s probably the best resource.  RAC and AA may also have updates. Hopefully anyone who’s going to be late will get in touch by phone but they may be in an area of poor mobile signals or may not have the leader’s mobile number to hand.

Car parking (link)

 Access land closures

Landowners are permitted to close areas of access land for 28 days a year for any of a number of reasons (and can be at short-notice).
Several large areas of open access land in the Peak District will be closed annually for game shooting (not only Grouse shooting season 12 Aug- early Dec). It’s mostly weekdays that are affected  but you can check here.

When access land is closed Public rights of way are supposed to remain open throughout but landowners can divert walkers for short periods to allow the shoot to go through, it is advisable to follow advice.  You can remove that possibility by avoiding the areas anyway.

Public rights of way

Footpaths can be closed (whether on Access land or elsewhere) for reasons including repairs, forestry, building, agricultural or quarrying operations.  Local authorities are supposed to maintain a list of such closures, the list for Derbyshire is here. Some local authorites are better than others in their provision of such information footpathmap.co.uk provides footpath data for all counties but is presumably dependent on the local authorites. Footpathmap is commercial but the free tier is adequate for most purposes.  Their map is better than that provided by Sheffield city council which has an intrusive text overlay and, oddly, loses the footpath overlay as you zoom in.

You should not regard a printed OS map as definitive, even updates to the online versions will lag the local planner’s maps such as those for Derbyshire here. See also the Peak District access information here it includes several areas we frequent so it’s worth checking when planning any moorland walks.  This specifically covers issues like moorland closure at times of elevated fire risk and for game-shooting.

Obstructed paths

• You are encouraged to report violations, for DCC that can be done here.
• Farmers are allowed to disturb footpaths for crop-planting but are required to restore the path within 14 days. This requirement is commonly overlooked, you may trample the crop as long as you are absolutely sure you’re in the right place!
  It is an offence to allow a bull in a field crossed by a public right of way, but there are exceptions to this, broadly speaking the exceptions apply to docile breeds and where there are also female cattle. That said, cattle are very nervous of dogs and cattle with calves will be protective. It is prudent to give all cattle a wide berth. Dogs MUST be on lead but if you are being chased by cattle, release the dog, the cattle will then try to attack the dog rather than you.

The images of the airstrip (Coal Aston/Troway) below show the OS map (2013) and the “definitive” DCC rights of way map. 

One might infer from the dotted lines across the landing strip that there is a direct route from Unstone FP55 to FP7. In the past we have made that connection, however there is now no access to FP7 from the airstrip and the current OS map (2022) no longer shows the dotted connection. Regrettably, on a recent visit (late 2022), there was no signage to warn that the path was blocked.

Long established footpaths can be diverted  as a “polite request” by the landowner (you CAN choose to follow the original route, it’s a right of way). The example below is North of Dale Dyke reservoir. The owners of Hallfield have made a good path SW and down-slope around their property, a notice requests that walkers use that.