What is the Countryside Access Service?
What is the Countryside Access Service?
The Countryside Access Service manages and maintains
4,270 miles of public rights of way in
Kent, 42% of Kent’s highway network. This is a statutory
(legally required) function covering a wide breadth of activities
ensuring the network is open and available for use. It employs
teams of contractors and volunteers
carrying out repairs to the surfaces, gates and stiles, bridges and
vegetation clearance, as well as working closely with landowners to
ensure routes are not obstructed by crops, fences, locked gates
or buildings.
It also manages the Definitive Map (the legal record of paths) and
deals with applications from the public to divert or add new rights of way to the
map.
We also provide the Common Land and Village Greens service
allowing people from across Kent to apply to register land,
important to local communities, as village greens for protection
for generations to come. In
addition, we are also legally responsible for ensuring access to
192 sites (over 2,000 hectares) of
public open greenspace, shown as Access Land on Ordnance Survey
maps.
Explore Kent is our extremely popular and well known
public brand, and through this we provide mapping information
(through online leaflets and our web-based interactive
map) and route guides for walking, cycling and
horse riding in Kent. Explore Kent works
with all providers of countryside access in Kent to provide
accurate, reliable and easily accessible information about enjoying
and accessing Kent’s countryside and coast.
The Explore Kent and Countryside Access
Service websites maintain a list of all the 4,270 miles of public
rights of way in Kent, along with nearly all parks and open spaces in Kent.
We are constantly innovating to improve the
service we provide and have recently launched a new Explore Kent
iPhone and Android App. Customers can now browse and save
routes straight to their phone and track and share routes with
friends. Download the app here.
How much does the Countryside Access
Service spend?
The Countryside Access Service
spends just 0.09% of Kent County Council's annual budget. You
can see a breakdown of the Council budget in full on the
'What we spend' page.
Further details can also be found
in our annual report.
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