The freedom to roam across beautiful and dramatic landscapes was a major incentive behind the creation of our National Parks and for many visitors the ability to get away from roads and traffic is a vital part of their visit.
Around 2,200km (1,400 miles) of public rights of way allows walkers, horse-riders and cyclists to access the North York Moors National Park and the vast majority of the open moorland, as well as Forestry England woodland, is now open access land and can be explored on foot.
Maintaining Rights of Way
When a problem is reported with a Right of Way, the Ranger Service prioritises work according to the seriousness of the issue, the importance of the route and the nature of the work. The maintenance of gates and stiles across a Right of Way remains the responsibility of the landowner, however, on higher priority routes, the Ranger Service is able to offer a greater level of support.
National Trails and Rights of Way that are important to local communities or promoted by the National Park Authority take precedence. These can be found on the Our Walks page of this website. The Ranger Service will follow up reports of damaged gates or stiles, and in some cases will replace or repair such items. This can take some time and is dependent on the number of higher priority issues that are reported at that time.
To make sure that we understand and apply the legal processes that underpin the management of Rights of Way appropriately across the National Park, we have a Rights of Way Officer. Amongst many other things, their role is to provide technical and specialist advice on the legality of public access, liaise with members of the public and landowners when access issue arise (general queries, obstructions), and work closely with the team to temporarily close rights of way, divert them when necessary and create new ones when opportunities arise.
Report a problem on a Right of Way
If you need to report a problem on the rights of way network in the National Park, please use the Rights of Way Feedback Form and fill in the details with as much information as you can.
Visitors act as a great network of eyes and ears, spotting issues, suggesting improvements and generally telling us how their visit went. It’s worth bearing in mind that we get high numbers of reports that need attention from the Ranger Team and as such, they may not be attended to straight away. Some low priority issues may take more than a year to get fixed.
You can explore the following pages to find out more about our rights of way, including information for people exploring the National Park, as well as landowners.
