Ramblers celebrate win in van Hoogstraten fight
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Your support makes all the difference.Ramblers were celebrating success over one of their bêtes noires yesterday after the Court of Appeal ordered a council to consider unblocking a footpath on the estate of the jailed multimillionaire Nicholas van Hoogstraten – the man who once described them as "the scum of the earth".
Three judges ruled that East Sussex County Council's decision to divert the footpath, rather than remove obstructions placed over it near Van Hoogstraten's unfinished palatial house, had been unlawful. The issue will be sent back to the council for reconsideration.
Lord Justice Schiemann said diverting the path was a failure of the council's statutory duty to "protect public footpaths and bridleways in the face of flagrant and provocative obstruction of such paths by landowners".
Van Hoogstraten, who is serving a 10-year prison sentence for the manslaughter of a former business associate, had an interest in Rarebargain, the company that owned the land. The firm has been prosecuted four times in two years over obstructions to the path, which included a locked gate, a barbed wire fence and a line of industrial refrigerators.
The appeal was brought by Kate Ashbrook, general secretary of the Open Spaces Society and chairman of the Ramblers' Association. Ms Ashbrook has led the campaign to reopen the 140-year-old right of way near Uckfield, known as Framfield 9.
She said: "This is a victory for fighters against footpath obstructions through the length and breadth of the country, not just a humiliation for East Sussex County Council." East Sussex's decision to reroute the path had been a timorous move to appease the landowner, she added.
The Ramblers' Association said East Sussex had spent £25,000 of public money fighting the case but needed only £4,400 to clear the path.
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