The public could lose access forever to thousands of miles of paths across England after landowners successfully lobbied the government, openDemocracy can reveal.

Campaigners have identified 41,000 miles of potential historical rights of way in England and hope to apply to have many of them recorded on modern-day maps.

But in March, environment secretary Thérèse Coffey U-turned on a government commitment to abolish the 2026 cut-off for applying to save these ‘lost paths’.

She instead decided to extend the deadline to 2031, after which it will no longer be possible to apply for a path to be added to official maps as a right of way based on historic evidence.

The Ramblers, a British walking charity, says the new timeline will not give its volunteers enough time to compile the large amounts of evidence needed to support applications.

Now, openDemocracy has found that Coffey’s U-turn followed a request made by the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), which represents landowners, in a letter sent to Trudy Harrison, a junior minister in Coffey’s department.

The letter, obtained by openDemocracy via a Freedom of Information request, said: “We would like to mention our concerns about the sudden removal of the 2026 cut-off for claiming historic and unclaimed rights of way.

“This backstop gave a degree of certainty for land managers who over the last 20 years have suffered numerous frivolous claims of historic rights on their land holdings.

“We would ask that you consider reinstating a cut-off date, perhaps with an extended deadline of 2031 as a compromise between land managers and the user groups.”

The letter, dated 20 December last year, was signed by Mark Tufnell, the CLA president, who added a handwritten message wishing the minister a happy christmas.

Re-establishing lost paths would significantly improve the present walking network, creating circular routes or connecting people more easily to local green spaces, the Ramblers said. It is thought that many more miles of historical paths exist but have yet to be identified on old maps.

Coffey’s decision to set a new deadline appears at odds with the government’s public access target, set in January, that “everyone should live within 15 minutes' walk of a green or blue space”, with the latter being areas dominated by bodies of water. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has admitted that 38% of people do not meet this criteria.

Registering a claim for lost paths to be added to modern ‘definitive maps’ requires painstaking research involving trips to local record offices and poring over historical maps to gather the necessary evidence that the route was traditionally used by the community.

Coffey was well aware that her decision could result in the loss of historic rights of way.

She did not make a public statement about her decision, but an email sent by her department to the Ramblers said that after 1 January, 2031, “any historic rights of way not recorded on the definitive map will, with certain exceptions, be extinguished”.

‘Unilateral decision to support landowners’

James MacColl, head of policy at the Ramblers, said: “The Ramblers was bitterly disappointed by the government’s U-turn, which threatens up to 41,000 miles of unrecorded rights of way in England.

“These routes could be hugely beneficial to communities across the country and help meet the government’s stated ambitions to improve access to nature. We are shocked to learn that ministers capitulated so readily to the demands of a single organisation representing landowners, with seemingly no regard to the views of others or the wider public interest.

“This is clear evidence of poor decision-making within DEFRA that ultimately affects us all.”

Kate Ashbrook, general secretary of the Open Spaces Society, a charity that campaigns to protect footpaths and green spaces, said: “Coffey, riding roughshod, took a unilateral decision to support the landowners, without even seeking the views of the rights-of-way stakeholder working group, established 15 years ago with a balanced membership, to advise DEFRA on such matters.”

The stakeholder group was set up by Natural England, a DEFRA agency, and is currently chaired by a DEFRA official.

Ashbrook continued: “It is outrageous that government ministers should so overtly support one faction against the interests of the wider public who want and need more and better access to our path network.”

A DEFRA spokesperson said it was “implementing reforms to existing processes, making it easier and faster to update the legal record of rights of way”.