There is currently no way of knowing how many defects there are on Lancashire’s public footpaths, Lancashire County Council has admitted.

The system used to record problems with the network suggests there are more than 12,800 faults.

But the figure is not regarded as a reliable indication of the number of issues that need addressing, a recent meeting of the full council was told.

That is because the software on which it relies is now 20 years old and has previously been beset with glitches, including an ongoing inability for it to remove duplicate reports of the same concern – meaning the tally could be incorrectly inflated.

Nevertheless, the pandemic appears to have prompted a spike in reports of rights of way complaints, with the total number registered by County Hall increasing by 20 percent between 2020 and 2021.

County Cllr Charlie Edwards, highways cabinet member, said while the raw totals could not be considered even “an approximate” measure of the problem, the rate of increase in reported faults was a “concern”.

He added: “It reflects the significant increase in the number of people using our path network since the pandemic, encouraged to do so by national messages [about] exercising locally.

“There was a huge increase in reports about blockages of paths in the first year of the pandemic, for example, as fear made many landowners try to exclude the public from using these paths. Many of these [issues] have gone, but…there [are] duplicate reports that remain on the database.

“We do welcome the increase in reports coming in, because it reflects increased use, which is a step forward to encouraging healthy habits in the next generation.

He was responding to a question from Rossendale East County Cllr Jackie Oakes, who raised concern over the increase in the number of fault reports, which had been highlighted by the Lancashire Footpath Access Committee.

She said even allowing for a significant “margin of error” in the data, there was still clearly a “huge backlog” – and contrasted the current situation with the 1,000 live defect reports held by the county council back in 2010.

Brian Dearnaley, chair of the Mid Lancashire branch of The Ramblers organisation, said it would be difficult ever to bring the number of problems back down to a more manageable level – and said people’s enjoyment of Lancashire’s public footpaths was being spoiled.