How Can Independent Schools Avoid Disputes With Ramblers About Public Rights Of Way Over School Land?

Competition among schools creates a constant pressure to improve facilities and the buildings to house them: sports halls, music centres and performing arts centres for example. But the space for building can be restricted by settlement boundaries, the existing footprint and a variety of other considerations so that the options for new construction are often quite limited. Many schools occupy historic sites with ancient rights of passage - and not only in the common room. So what happens when a school wants to build over a right of way?

It is no secret that Harrow School is currently doing battle with ramblers over the right to walk across the school's land. It has even been a headline in the national press that Winston Churchill's old school will not budge after allegedly blocking a historic right of way.

There is an ongoing dispute surrounding a right of way running along a path between two all-weather pitches on Harrow School's playing fields: an old path across the school's privately owned land had been used by walkers for centuries, but was built over about eight years ago as part of a re-development of the school's sports facilities. Harrow School granted the local council a written "permissive path agreement" allowing the public informal use of an alternative path across the school fields.

Despite the fact that the council agreed to this arrangement in writing at the time of re-development, local residents now want to resurrect the old path. The alternative permissive path is deemed unacceptable by local walkers because the path doubles the distance across the playing fields and does not allow the views across Harrow Hill.

It seems likely that no express public right of way is (or was ever) registered on the school's title; if so Harrow School perhaps did more than it was obliged to do by engaging in discussions with the local council and ramblers at the time of redevelopment, and agreeing the permissive path as an alternative right of way. If no express right of way exists, then the school could have taken a harder line and simply gone ahead with re-development without granting even a permissive path.

What is a "permissive path agreement? A permissive path agreement is an arrangement by a private landowner to allow informal use of a path across its land, subject to conditions. Unlike a public right of way, permissive paths do not create any permanent rights because the landowner has the ability to terminate the agreement at any...