A DISPUTED bridle path in the Ribble Valley is set to open following a 28-year legal row.

Locked gates currently bar public access to the path in Mellor despite an order coming into affect at the end of 2014 for Saccary Lane to be fully opened.

Lancashire County Council is in talks with the landowners Simon and Hélène Andrew over resolving the issue after the order was originally given in 2012.

MORE TOP STORIES:

A spokesman for the council said that under the terms of the highway order the bridleway should now be open but isn’t.

Following a four-day inquiry, planning inspector Sue Arnott ruled that walkers, cyclists and horse riders have a right to take a woodland short cut off Saccary Lane.

David Goode, Lancashire County Council public rights of way manager, said: “Following a public inquiry the planning inspector confirmed that the claimed right of way off Saccary Lane should be recorded as a bridleway.

“We have been discussing the necessary changes with the landowner following confirmation of the order at the end of 2014 and we are working with him to resolve the issue of the gates.”

Mellor Parish Council voted unanimously to support a campaign to re-open the road and the county council marked it as a ‘byway open to all traffic’ in 2005.

An appeal against the original decision failed last year and the planning inspectorate ordered the bridleway to be re-opened at a width of six metres.

Jayne Elliott, of the environment directorate at the county council, has said that the bridleway must be opened up and that the council will be erecting public bridleway signs at either end of the route.

She added that as long as the gate was not difficult to use it would not have to be replaced.

Coun Noel Walsh, who represents the village on Ribble Valley Borough Council, said: “This has been a very very long-running issue for the village and the area.

“At the tail end of last year I was under the impression that it had all been sorted out.

“I deal with this issue through the parish council who have been heavily involved with this from the start.

“I hope that this is resolved soon.”

No-one was available to comment on behalf of the landowners.