The Independent report:
England may be a green and pleasant land, but getting around it on foot is proving harder than ever as council cuts leave footpaths blocked, run-down and overgrown, according to a report.
There are more than 100,000 problems on England’s footpaths, with difficulties for walkers ranging from dangerous barbed wire and missing bridges to impenetrable overgrowth, rotten stiles, and flooded fields, thePaths in Crisis report from the walking charity, The Ramblers, claims.
The organisation used the Freedom of Information Act to discover that more than 30 per cent of English councils have cut their paths budget this year, some following from three previous years of swingeing cuts.