A DEMAND that the Countryside Agency should pay for "right to roam" mapping mistakes was made this week by the Country Land and Business Association in Yorkshire.

Mistakes include at least two areas of private woodland in North Yorkshire being wrongly mapped as "open countryside" for public access.

"Only by a costly and formal appeal process by the landowners concerned can the obvious mistake be put right," said Dorothy Fairburn, CLA regional director. "If landowners have to make an unnecessary appeal, the costs should be met by the Countryside Agency."

Soon after publication of the second stage, "provisional" maps, the CLA and many of its members noticed that new areas of proposed access land had been added since the publication of draft maps for public consultation.

None of the landowners affected had been notified of this by the agency and land wrongly included at the draft stage had not been removed, despite landowners pointing it out.

In one case, 150 acres of woodland a CLA member planted five years ago in the North York Moors National Park was shown as open countryside for public access. Another member had an area of ancient woodland mapped.

Only a formal appeal could change that and the landowner, the innocent victim of someone else's obvious mistake, had to pay, said Miss Fairburn.

"This is despite at least two cases of landowners, on their own initiative, looking at the draft map and noticing the mistake, and sending in documentary evidence and photos showing the woodland.

"The whole mapping procedure is already way over budget. This kind of bungle only adds to the costs and, on top of this, no-one knows where the money is coming from to pay for implementing the Countryside and Rights of Way Act.

"We are continuing to work with the Ramblers' Association and the NFU and lobbying the Government on ways of finding the funds to enhance accessibility and enjoyment of public access land."

James Farrell, Strutt and Parker's leading expert on the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, has been organising seminars and advice clinics with the CLA across Yorkshire.

"An alarming number of the genuine representations made at the first draft stage have been ignored by the agency, in addition to these latest cases," he said. "It's glaringly obvious to everyone else that woodland is by no stretch of the imagination 'open countryside'.

"Bizarrely, the grounds for appeal once the second stage maps are published are narrower and it takes considerable effort, ingenuity and expense to get the maps corrected under a full-blown planning style appeal before an inspector.

"Our experience to date with these silly mistakes has been that the agency will often concede the case, but only when it is too late for the landowner to avoid the time, cost and effort involved in an appeal."