A PUBLIC footpath used by Leeze Park residents for many years as a route to Okehampton town centre via Castle Road will not be diverted, a planning inspectorate has ruled. Residents were pleased to learn earlier this month, that following an inquiry held by inspector Alan Beckett last November, the order to divert part of the footpath had been rejected. The footpath, which runs from the rear of properties on Leeze Park to the exit onto Castle Road, was designated Footpath 41 on the definitive public rights of way map in April 2001, on the basis it had been in regular use for more than 20 years. Nine years ago, outline planning permission for the building of two dwellings on the parcel of land crossed by the footpath was given to local builder John Feaver, who subsequently applied for a footpath diversion order. Objectors to the diversion said the proposed alternative route would be much less convenient and accessible for residents and visitors. Mr Beckett supported the objectors? argument that the proposed alternative route would ?present a substantial inconvenience to the users of the route as the introduction of steps to overcome the gradient of the land . . . would render the path unusable as a link between Leeze Park and Castle Road for local users, who included the elderly, the infirm, mothers with children in buggies and schoolchildren?.
