The Countryside Access (Dedication of Land as Access Land) (Wales) Regulations 2003

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

Section 16 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (“the Act”) enables a person who holds an interest in land (being a freehold interest or a leasehold interest of which not less than 90 years remain unexpired) to dedicate that land as “access land” for the purposes of Part I of the Act.

Land dedicated under section 16 of the Act will be subject to the public right of access in the same way as if the land had been included in a map prepared by the Countryside Council for Wales (“the Council”) under Part I of the Act and will be subject to the same general restrictions (set out in Schedule 2 to the Act), except to the extent that those who dedicate the land remove or relax those restrictions by the terms of the dedication.

Under section 16 of the Act, the National Assembly for Wales (“the National Assembly”) may prescribe the steps to be taken in order to dedicate land as access land.

Regulation 3 prescribes the form and content of the written instrument which must be executed in order to dedicate land, including what it must contain in order to identify the land to which it relates, the persons dedicating it, the other persons who, by reason of their interest in the land, consent to the dedication, and the extent of any removal or relaxation of general restrictions to be observed by persons exercising access right to it.

Regulation 4 prescribes how a dedication instrument is to be executed and requires those who do so to have given 3 months' notice to various bodies who are likely to have an interest in the proposal to dedicate the land before doing so.

Regulation 5 requires a dedication instrument, if it is to be effective, to be lodged within one month of being executed with the access authority for the land to which it relates (or one of them if there is more than one) and for the dedication to come into force six months after the execution of the dedication instrument.

Regulation 6 provides for copies of the dedication instrument to be sent to interested bodies other than the access authority with whom it has been lodged.

Regulation 7 provides for the removal or relaxation of general restrictions on access to take effect in accordance with the terms of a dedication instrument and for further removals or relaxations by means of an amending dedication instrument.

Regulation 8 provides for the use of electronic communication.