Oughtigate Letter and Timeline

To the Editor Look Local
“Oughtigate” – the Latest

After over three years of polite campaigning, local people in Oughtibridge and Wharncliffe Side, supported by the Upper Don Trail Trust, are still waiting for action to get a single gate to be opened allowing safe access to what is already supposed to be a public access woodland.

The saga began in 2022 as new homes began to be occupied on the former Paper Mill site, where an entire new community of over 300 homes is now nearing completion.

The Upper Don Trail Trust were contacted by new residents who wanted to walk in Wharncliffe Woods which directly adjoin their homes and which are designated as “public access” by owners Forestry England. The residents were frustrated that the obvious access was blocked by a gate belonging to Yorkshire Water at the end of a road leading to their nearby water treatment works. The gate was apparently as a temporary measure whilst the paper mill site was derelict.

For at least 70 years these woods have been accessible from a public footpath at Holmes Farm and more recently also from the Plank Gate section of the Trans Pennine Trail . Other existing access points to the woods and trail at Deepcar or Oughtibridge involve a long detour from the new housing estate or the village on busy and sometimes hazardous roads.

The locked gate is preventing this much easier and direct access Those with the confidence and physical ability have been scrambling down a steep river bank and squeezing through a hole in a fence to access the public woodland, which demonstrates demand but this is obviously not a viable long term solution. Opening the gate would greatly improve both access and safety. It would also start to provide the major remaining ‘missing link’ in the 23km Upper Don Trail linking Sheffield centre to Langsett and the Peak Park, most of which is in place.

Replacing the locked gate by one which admits non-vehicular users requires the active permission of Forestry England and Yorkshire Water. Both organisations have agreed in principle, and both claim to encourage public enjoyment of and engagement with their huge land holdings. The UDTT has requested a ‘permissive right of way’ which protects both organisations’ operational rights and have assembled a several dozen strong list of volunteers offering to look after day-to-day maintenance and reporting. They even found a sponsor for the new gate and offered to provide signage.

According to YW and FE websites this should be music to their ears:
Forestry England’s says:
‘We will continue to build on our varied and open volunteering programme which is delivered across the nation’s forests by our eclectic and passionate volunteers, whether they are part of a Forestry England delivered programme, Friends of Groups, specialist interest, partnership or third party agreements. All volunteering activity across the nation’s forests is vital to the management for today and tomorrow.’

Yorkshire Water’s says:
‘We care for over 28,000 hectares of land across Yorkshire. And its here for you to enjoy’
Yet in spite of these fine public statements and apparent agreement in principle at the outset in 2022, this very simple agreement has been stuck in a cycle of unanswered emails and unfulfilled promises of action for over three years (see HERE for the full timeline of 35 emails and 5 meetings).

Only after the recent intervention of local MP Marie Tidball in December 2024 have officials from YW and FE even started to talk to each other. But neither organisation has so far offered any timescale for resolving the matter.

We trust that surely this time the discussions will not go round in circles again and so we are asking the two landowners to commit to a target for the new gate to finally be opened by Easter 2025, in time for this summer !

Meanwhile plans for another link in the UDT – construction of a long-awaited bridge over the Don from the new housing to Oughtibridge Village – is apparently progressing to Business Case approval by Sheffield City Council. The proposed access to the woodland can then be shared with the whole village, providing a safe off-road alternative to the very hazardous route up Station Lane recently subject to renewed local campaigning.

Signed,