WITH impeccable timing, the Bury Group of the Ramblers Association completed its footpaths survey a week before the foot and mouth outbreak resulted in many closures.

Chris Langabeer, footpath officer for the group, co-ordinated a team of nine volunteers who walked all the 656 footpaths throughout the borough between last July and February of this year.

Standard forms were used to note problems and Chris produced a report of the results with copies going to relevant Bury Council officers.

The report makes interesting reading. For 63 paths were impassable, mostly due to deliberate blocking, which the group stresses is illegal.

And 80 paths were not signed where they left a metalled road. The group says the local authority has a duty to do this.

Twenty stiles were broken or difficult to use and 72 paths were difficult to walk due to overgrown vegetation, mud or overhanging trees.

In some cases, footpaths still on the definitive map, held by the local authority, had houses built on them more than 30 years ago.

The group says that with many rural footpaths closed at present, much work will be needed to get the whole network open and accessible when the current restrictions are lifted.

This situation, it adds, was promised for the whole of the country for the year 2000.