Hemsby footpath lost after public inquiry takes place

Villagers have lost a 10-year battle with a holiday park owner over a blocked footpath that has cut off two communities.

Officials have ruled that a section of path just 30m long that once connected Winterton and Hemsby will remain shut to the public.

It follows a legal tussle between the owners of a holiday park, homeowners and villagers that has lasted a decade and culminated in a public inquiry last month.

Villagers say the closure, created when a homeowner erected a fence on either side of a 30m stretch of land, has left them without a safe and accessible route between the neighbouring communities.

However, the Cole family, which owns Winterton Valley Estate, said the route has always cut through private land but people chose to ignore ‘no entry’ signs for decades.

At the public hearing held at Hemsby Village Hall last month, locals attempted to persuade the Planning Inspector – the government official presiding over the footpath dispute – that they had used the route continuously for 20 years.

People described how they had walked the path since they were children in the 1950s and presumed generations before them would have likely also used the route.

This would mean it could be granted a public right of way under common law through the legal maxim, ‘once a highway, always a highway’.

However, Nigel Farthing, the inspector, decided not to confirm the footpath.

He believed there was sufficient evidence that showed Winterton Valley Estate had no intention of allowing people to walk along the route, which connected the estate road with Long Beach Estate to the south.

This is due to several private property signs being placed around the route since 1969.

It means villagers wanting to walk from Winterton to Hemsby will either have to travel along the busy main road or along the coastal footpath through the dunes, which is impassable for wheelchair users or pushchairs.