NEW rambling rights could put councils and landowners on the warpath warns The Bishop of Hereford.
The Rt Rev. John Oliver, himself a keen country walker, says rocky roads are ahead if the updated access act doesn't direct exactly who can go where, and when.
His comments came in an address to the Offa's Dyke Association (ODA), of which he is president.
An audience at the organisation's annual meeting heard the bishop broadly back the Countryside and Rights of Way Bill currently passing through parliament.
But he feared conflict between county councils and landowners over the precise areas open to access.
Such disputes, said the bishop, were likely to take years to resolve at great expense.
He did, however, hope that nothing would keep him out of his place in the House of Lords when the Bill is due for debate there next month.
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