National Trails

Freddie van Mierlo Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2025 Westminster Hall

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Before I call Freddie van Mierlo to move the motion, I remind other hon. Members that they can speak in this debate only if they have the prior permission of the mover and the Minister, and they have told the Chair. As no one has told the Chair, I presume no one else wants to speak. Of course, interventions are possible.

[Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the condition of national trails.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Betts. National trails are the less well-known but no less important friend of national parks and national landscapes. They deliver significant benefits by improving access to nature, as well as for health and the economy. However, due to their low profile, national trails have been an easy target for cuts. Funding remained flat for the decade from 2013, resulting in a 30% real-terms cut. Although funding began to rise with inflation in 2023, no account has been taken of that lost decade.

There are 16 national trails across the UK, which have more than 309 million visits every year. They provide access to nature, often just a stone’s throw away from people’s houses. They are treasured assets for walking, horse riding, running and cycling. Unlike some other countryside rights of way, they are extremely well signposted, making them more navigable to those less familiar with the countryside.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on bringing this debate forward. I spoke to him beforehand. Northern Ireland stands apart from the rest of the United Kingdom in that it does not have a formal national trail system. What we do have is the Ulster Way, a 636-mile walk across the six counties of Northern Ireland. However, there are issues about signposting, overgrown paths and access. Does the hon. Member agree that these beautiful scenic walks need to be protected and that we need to work closely with the relevant agencies to maintain upkeep?

[Freddie van Mierlo]

The hon. Member is right to point out concerns about the upkeep of the Ulster Way. I thank him for bringing that route to our attention; I look forward to perhaps walking it myself one day.

National trails tend to be far more accessible for people with disabilities due to additional work that takes place to replace stiles with gates and improve the standards of paths for wheelchairs users. For these reasons and more, the great British public appreciate the trails, and so does our economy. The combined economic impact of national trails totals £1.8 billion, and the contribution to health every year is £300 million through savings to the NHS.

In my constituency of Henley and Thame, we are lucky to have two national trails—the Thames Path and the Ridgeway.

[Dr Roz Savage (South Cotswolds) (LD)]

The River Thames arises in my constituency, and hence the Thames Path does too. As well as providing a beautiful walking route, it offers a valuable corridor for wildlife. Does my hon. Friend agree that funding the Thames Path adequately is essential if we are to protect habitats, contribute to biodiversity targets and preserve the natural beauty of South Cotswolds?

[Freddie van Mierlo]

My hon. Friend is right to point out the opportunity that exists in leveraging national trails for the improvement of biodiversity and meeting the Government’s biodiversity goals. I will come on to that a bit later.

I am going to focus on the two trails in my constituency: the Thames Path and the Ridgeway. As we have heard, the Thames Path begins in the Cotswolds. It enters my constituency at Benson, before darting across the river into Wallingford, and then crossing the river again and coming into Henley and Thame at Goring. From there, it makes its way into the beautiful village of Whitchurch-on-Thames before paying a visit to Reading and then onwards to my home town of Henley-on-Thames.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

My hon. Friend makes a point about the urban settlements that the trails go through. I have three trails in my constituency—the Pennine Way, the Pennine Bridleway and the Coast to Coast Path. They go through beautiful countryside, of course, but places like Orton, Shap and Kirkby Stephen benefit hugely from people walking through them. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is right that there should be good services and facilities in those places? I mention that in particular because of the current threat in Shap to close the public loos. Does he agree that local councils, both at parish and district level, should do everything in their power to maintain these services for local people and for all the walkers?

[Freddie van Mierlo]

My hon. Friend is right to point out the importance of services along these well-loved routes. He is also right to highlight that national trails are accessible from urban areas, which makes them particularly special compared with national parks and landscapes.

Walkers are currently forced to deviate from the Thames Path at both Benson and Henley. While the weir project is progressing in Benson, the Marsh Lock horse bridge between Henley and Shiplake has been closed for over three years. The current diversion requires crossing the dangerous A4155 twice and takes the walker well away from the water.

Since coming into office, I have been campaigning to reopen Marsh Lock bridge. With the help of an 11-year-old Brownie, Claudia, and her petition, access to a pot of £500,000 has been secured to begin plans for repairs. I continue to have conversations with the Environment Agency to ensure that repairs move forward. I am grateful to the Minister for Water for her engagement on that issue, but there is a long way to go, including to find the estimated £2.5 million needed to actually implement the repair.

Further north in my constituency, the Ridgeway national trail carves an impressive path from the iconic Goring Gap, through the village of Nuffield and the idyllic town of Watlington, before crossing the border into Buckinghamshire just after Chinnor. The Ridgeway is known as Britain’s oldest road. It is believed to have been in use over 5,000 years ago as a trading route. We know how important connection to our history and cultural heritage is. It is amazing to think that when we walk the Ridgeway, we are striking our feet on the same earth as our ancestors all those years ago.

The Ridgeway is also well known for the internationally renowned Uffington white horse, carved into chalk, but such chalk is vulnerable to damage and parts of the Ridgeway are classified as byway, meaning they are legally open to motorised traffic. The Ridgeway therefore suffers damage from recreational vehicles and off-road motorcycles. Local authorities and National Trails UK find it difficult to justify the regular repairs needed to maintain the trail to the correct standard. Ian, the project’s trail officer, is fighting to prohibit recreational motorised vehicles from the trail so that road users are limited to Trampers, off-road wheelchairs and road-legal pedal electric bicycles.

From just those two examples in my constituency, we begin to get an idea of how important protected national trails are for nature and our history. After speaking with representatives from National Trails UK, the Thames Path and the Ridgeway, I know that stark action is needed.

There are three main problems preventing the maintenance of national trails: legal status, underfunding and bureaucracy. National trails were originally designated by the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949. The main goal was to provide public access to the countryside and establish protected landscapes. Trails, parks and landscapes were considered under that legislation. It gave powers to Natural England to survey, plan and propose long-distance routes that would subsequently be maintained.

Since that legislation, however, the legal status and protections of those routes have deteriorated. Although national parks and national landscapes have what is known as a statutory purpose, national trails do not. They are therefore not sufficiently protected by or referenced in key legislation alongside parks and landscapes, giving them a lower status. That lower level of protection puts people’s access to the outdoors at risk.

Furthermore, the current designation of national trails is mostly limited to the width of the path, which is particularly worrying given that they neighbour vast biodiversity. The Thames Path, in my constituency, runs along the edge of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust’s Hartslock nature reserve, which is one of the two remaining UK sites to have the monkey orchid. The Ridgeway passes through the Chinnor Hill and Oakley Hill nature reserves. Failure to recognise the paths’ interconnectedness with other nature means that BBOWT has reported damage to the surrounding nature due to ill-thought-through diversions or people straying from the paths, but without recognition of the surrounding nature, there is no allocation for renewal and maintenance.

The second main problem is funding. Considering how many economic benefits national trails bring, they have not received a meaningful funding increase since 2013.

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

My hon. Friend talks about the economic benefits of national trails. In my constituency, we have the South West Coast Path, which attracts 9 million visitors every year and is reckoned to support them spending about £500 million. Does my hon. Friend recognise that a south-west inland path would maintain more hospitality jobs in Devon? Does he recognise the value for the hospitality sector in his constituency too?

[Freddie van Mierlo]

My hon. Friend’s intervention speaks exactly to my point around the closed Marsh Lock horse bridge, which has resulted in a direct loss of hospitality revenue in the local economy because of people avoiding the path due to the long diversion.

As I said, there are many economic benefits to national trails, but they have not received a meaningful increase in funding since 2013. That is despite the fact that the national trail network has increased in size over the last decade, and will double in size by the end of 2025 with the addition of the King Charles III England Coast Path and the Coast to Coast Path. Increasing the workload while stagnating the funding is a recipe for decline; the Ridgeway’s funding now stands at just £1 per mile to cover all revenue, staffing costs and maintenance.

National trails are facing a range of new challenges that funding is not keeping up with. When speaking with Wendy and Ian, representatives from the two trails in my constituency, they both noted the changing weather patterns as a barrier to the trails’ protection. In Oxfordshire, rainfall was 300% above average in September 2024, but dry weather in the summer has worn away the grass on the riverbank in popular areas of the Thames Path, leaving bare soil exposed. The combination of bare soil and high rainfall means that there is an increased likelihood of erosion, with banks washing into the river. In Goring, part of the river path had to be closed last year precisely because of that issue.

Flooding presents an additional challenge. In anticipation, national trails are preparing to identify winter routes and diversions to avoid flooding, but without the funding, groups are worried that that they will find it difficult to tackle these new challenges.

Staff work day and night to support national trails. Hannah, who takes care of the Thames Path in Oxfordshire, says that they have consistently doubled any match funding that they receive. Despite their hard work year on year, a lack of funding coupled with inflation pressures has caused them to make some difficult decisions, cutting funding for improvement projects, engagement activities, information provision and volunteer programmes to stay afloat. With rising costs, there may soon be nothing left to cut.

A third issue facing national trails is bureaucracy. For work to be carried out adjacent to the River Thames, there is a need for a flood risk activity permit, but there is currently a four-month delay from the EA in issuing these. In addition, for some of the year, such as in winter when the river is flowing fast or in flood, work cannot be carried out, but funding is still given year by year. That leaves an extremely short window for work to be done, if there is any opportunity at all, and funds often cannot be used in time.

Although I have painted a bleak picture so far, some simple changes could improve the future of national trails. I make three recommendations to Government. First, they should support a statutory purpose for national trails, including them in the group with national parks and national landscapes. With a statutory purpose would come the duty to protect and enhance people’s access to the outdoor and to experience the national trails. It would give national trails a proper place in the planning system, and would help to stop the loss of trails to development, as has already happened to the new King Charles III trail. Changes to the national planning policy framework, such as making it clear that changes to national trails require the consent of the Secretary of State, would further protect their status. Automatically, with small cost-free changes, we can better protect national trails for future generations.

Secondly, the Government should invest in national trails properly, or at least restore their funding in line with inflation from the 2013 benchmark. Further, those funding settlements should be made three years long. Thirdly, the Government should communicate with agencies, such as the EA, that have responsibilities that interact with national trails to ensure that they produce assessments in a timely manner and are given the resources that they need to maintain assets, such as the Marsh Lock horse bridge and Benson weir. Without that, national trails are in danger of falling below the quality standard. In 2023, the Disabled Ramblers’ condition monitoring report revealed that nearly 80% of the 50 miles surveyed along the Ridgeway did not meet the established standards.

The Government have previously recognised the vital role that national trails play in rural tourism, promoting the cultural assets of England and the health of the population. With proper funding and support, we can ensure internationally high standards and deliver more for people and nature.