Highway Obstructions
Case reference EIR2025/02080
Received 21 October 2025
Published 28 November 2025
Request
1) Please supply the number of reported obstructions on unsealed highways and Rights of Way in the past three years broken down into
A) wilful
B) natural
2) the number of Notices and prosecutions in this period under s137, s143, s154(1) or (3), etc
3) the number that have been successful in getting the obstruction removed.
4) the number where landowners have claimed ‘it is not a highway’. The following may assist with the reason for this request, but is not an FoI request:- It is known that a very large and increasing number of highways are wilfully obstructed in Powys, Herefordshire and Shropshire. Many are ‘copycat’. Farmers do talk to each other, one gets away with it, others try it on. Prosecution costs can be reclaimed from the obstructor. Just one prosecution can deter many others and be cost saving. Yet there are hundreds of obstructions left unattended in these three counties.
CLARIFICATION: Enforcement Actions against obstructions only.
Response
1) Please supply the number of reported obstructions on unsealed highways and Rights of Way in the past three years broken down into
A) wilful
B) natural
2) the number of Notices and prosecutions in this period under s137, s143, s154(1) or (3), etc
3) the number that have been successful in getting the obstruction removed.
4) the number where landowners have claimed ‘it is not a highway’.
The following may assist with the reason for this request, but is not an FoI request:- It is known that a very large and increasing number of highways are wilfully obstructed in Powys, Herefordshire and Shropshire.
Many are ‘copycat’. Farmers do talk to each other, one gets away with it, others try it on.
Prosecution costs can be reclaimed from the obstructor. Just one prosecution can deter many others and be cost saving.
Yet there are hundreds of obstructions left unattended in these three counties.
CLARIFICATION: Enforcement Actions against obstructions only.
The above request is refused under Regulation 12 (4) (b) of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 on the grounds that the request is manifestly unreasonable.
The parametres of the request (information from the past 3 years), would generate a possible 20,733 potentially relevent jobs. There is no specific category for reporting natural obstructions (e.g., river erosion, landslides, etc.), and therefore each of these jobs would need to be manually checked in order to establish whether they are ‘natural’ or ‘wilful’ obstructions. Each job would also have to be manually checked to establish whether they were successful in getting the obstruction removed or not.
It is estimated (based on a previous time calculation which was accepted by the Information Commissioner's Office) that retrieving and extracting information from relevant jobs: 20,733 total jobs x 2 – 3 minutes to review each job = 136 hours (19.4 days).
Therefore the total estimated time / costs to provide information is
Generating job details and investigating the classification of the obstruction, and whether the obstruction was successfully removed in order to provide the requested information
= 136 hours (19.4 days).
Total cost of officer time @ £25 per hour = £3,400
This exception is subject to a public interest test, and accordingly I have weighed up the public interest in disclosure against the public interest in not disclosing the information as follows:
The public interest in disclosure:
The Environmental Information Regulations specifically state that public authorities should apply a presumption in favour of disclosure when considering environmental information.
Release of environmental information promotes transparency and accountability, increases public awareness and understanding of environmental matters which in turn enables the general public to more effectively participate in decision making.
The public interest in non-disclosure:
Herefordshire is a small rural county. The current (2021 census) estimate of the population is 187,100. Two fifths of residents live in the most rural areas of the county. Herefordshire has the 4th lowest overall population density in England (the 9th lowest of all 'top tier' local authorities in England & Wales) at 85 people per square kilometer (or 0.85 per hectare; 220 per square mile). Likewise Herefordshire Council is comparatively small, with small numbers of officers in each team.
This includes the teams which would be involved in dealing with this request. Carrying out this request would pull resources from the below areas of work.
The PROW team are responsible for the following areas amongst other duties:
· Maintaining and protecting public rights of way
· Removing obstructions
· Keeping an accurate legal record of public rights of way
· Enforcement Duties
The time that it would take to collate the information requested would affect their ability to effectively deliver the above services which would not be in the public interest.
The amount of time that it would take to collate the information requested would divert resources and limit the council's ability to deliver other public services, disruption which would be detrimental to the wider public. We have considered whether we could deploy other means under the Regulations to provide you with this information, such as extending the statutory response timescales for a further 20 working days on the grounds of complexity and volume of information, or by issuing you with a charging notice. However, even if the timescales were extended or a charging notice issued, this request would still place a disproportionate burden on the council which would be manifestly unreasonable.
Taking the above into consideration, I have found the public interest in disclosure in this case is outweighed by the public interest in not disclosing the information.
I have been advised by the Service Area that we can answer Q2 and Q4 outside of this charging notice and the response is below:
Q2 – 796 Notices and No prosecutions in the last 3 years
Q4 – The team have advised that our database doesn’t record whether landowners have claimed ‘it is not a highway’, therefore this information is not held.
Documents
This is Herefordshire Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.