6:00am Friday 24th October 2008
By Duncan Eaton
THEY were part of the picture postcard setting for BBC’s popular sailing soap opera Howard’s Way.
But as far as the official map was concerned two footpaths, which led to the foreshore in front of Bursledon’s Jolly Sailor never existed.
The pub and the nearby boatyard became famous in the 1980s as the nation’s TV viewers were enthralled by the tangled lives of the cast of wealthy yachties.
Now the two paths have been added to the official map of public rights of way.
But it has taken a ten-year campaign by Diane Andrewes, who is secretary of the Bursledon Rights of Way and Amenities Preservation Group, to get the paths officially recognised.
She scored a resounding victory in her campaign after a public inquiry, conducted by a Whitehall inspector ruled in her favour.
Diane’s long running campaign was backed by the Open Spaces Society.
She said: “This is a wonderful result, and fully justifies my ten-year campaign to have these paths added to the official map.
“Now people know that the paths exist in law and can be legally used and enjoyed.”
The inquiry inspector Heidi Cruickshank, concluded that the evidence showed that the route probably originated as an access for the Jolly Sailor and to the foreshore, often in connection with boating use.
At the inquiry, Diane called ten witnesses who told of their use of the paths. One of them a former landlady of the Jolly Sailor, who owned the property between 1978 and 1986, and gave evidence of public use of the routes.
The two paths run from Lands End Road and then they join and drop steeply down to the pub and the River Hamble foreshore.
Kate Ashbrook, general secretary of the Open Spaces Society: “We congratulate Diane and her fellow villagers for their persistence in seeing the application through.
“This is an excellent outcome, which confirms what they always believed, that these routes are public paths.
“Now they are protected for ever and can be used by all.”
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.dailyecho.co.uk