Footpaths In and Around Dry Drayton
If you have any issues you would like to raise on local footpaths please e-mail webmaster@drydrayton.net or add a comment to the Dry Drayton Parish Council pages.
The Dry Drayton Parish Council is currently (March 2019) consulting on proposed changes to a number of footpaths between Dry Drayton and Childerley. See the Parish Council's own website for details.
Footpaths and Walks of Dry Drayton
You can download here a booklet on local walks and footpaths, edited by Nick Irish and published by Dry Drayton 2000.
Rights of Way in the Village Generally
We are most grateful to Cambridgeshire County Council Public Rights of Way and Access Team for a pdf of a map showing footpaths in the Parish.
These are the notes accompanying the map, dated 20 Sept 2011
Following requests from many Clerks, we are happy to provide your Parish Council with an electronic version of the GIS map for its area showing registered public paths along with commons/greens and permissive paths. This is being made available as a pdf at a scale of 1:10000 and the copy for your parish accompanies this letter.
Please note that there may be some paths shown in unexpected places. This is because we are still part way (approximately 30% parishes complete) through our project to consolidate the Definitive Map. As a result, what is shown on the other 70% of parishes includes the strictly legal line of every path, and this may not reflect recent or even past diversions where the legal work is not yet complete. If you have any major concerns, please contact me by email. However, please be assured that we are on track to have the legal work for all parishes completed by mid-2012.
In the light of this, we plan to send all Parish Councils a paper copy of their legally up-to-date map of public rights of way at the end of the project. In the meantime, we will not be able to provide paper copies except as part of particular casework. Most local printers should be able to print you a hard copy of the map either from an email or from a CD/Memory stick. We are more than happy for you to add the PDF to Parish websites or to use them to produce village maps.
Yours sincerely,
Alysoun Hodges
Public Rights of Way and Access Team
Discussions about footpaths connected with Crafts Hill Farm.
We are grateful to Peter Fane, Parish Council Chair, for this item, Nov 2012.
"Crafts Hill Farm was purchased by Dry Drayton Estate at the end of September, and is now farmed by James Peck’s PX Farms. A programme of agricultural improvements, including ploughing and ditch clearance to expose the land drains, started immediately and has been a cause of some concern in the village.
I presented a dossier of these concerns to Adrian and James Peck at the beginning of October, based on the emails I had received. They have agreed to consider these concerns, but insist that as commercial farmers they need to bring the land back into full productivity.
The field headlands, including the grass area previously used for informal recreation, were ploughed for James Peck by the outgoing farmer at the end of September. PX Farms have now confirmed a new permissive path around the edge of Honey Hill cottage. They are reinstating this particular track, and have installed a bridge to connect this to the Green Track from the end of the High Street, and to the network of permissive paths created previously.
In return, they have asked that dog-walkers and others now stick to the permissive paths, which continue through the Plantation to Bar Hill. The new permissive paths are clearly marked on a number of signs they have erected, including at the end of the High Street. For the moment, the surface of the tracks is very muddy, but hopefully this will improve in the spring.
PX Farms spoke to the District Council before removing the line of trees in the middle of Crafts Hill field, near to the electricity substation on Oakington Road. The District Council decided that no consent was needed for this under the Hedgerow Regulations. In part this is because the removal was supported by UK Power Networks, who were concerned that the trees were interfering with their overhead powerlines. However, PX Farms are now proposing to plant hedges all the way around the field.
We have sought assurances from the District Council that if any further hedgerow removal is to be considered in the village, the parish council should be consulted beforehand, as required under the Regulations. In particular, James Peck has assured me that he has no plans to disturb the hedgerow and avenue either side of the Crafts Hill path, which he values as a feature."
Other ongoing information on local permissive footpaths, recent damage and other issues from PX Farms can be found on the blog of James S Peck Nuffield Scholar 2010.
Finding other Local Walks