Access issues and private property

[micmar22]

Does that mean we have to climb over or are we able to open it? Cheers

No need to climb over gates. Bushwalking access is via latched pedestrian gates and one stile. No problems with access I was there last week.

[davidp]

someone asks ...... Why is this an issue? The "paper road" is crown land and you can walk along it

Crown Roads (and other crown land) can quietly be sold to neighbours for a nominal sum often with no effective consultation with other users. Usually there is an advertisement in some obscure newspaper on the back page and then you have 28 days to lodge an objection. The thing is there is no coordinated way for walkers to be informed of such sales. It would be good if there was a mechanism whereby walkers or other users who regularly use a strip of crown land could register with the land crowns office as an "interested party. But to my knowledge this is not possible. If the land borders a National park then NPWS is supposed to be consulted but this does not always happen (viz Corang Lagoon in 2011)

[davidp]

..

[Lophophaps]

Admin comment

There were a number of threads that discussed the same matters. Moderators have decided to put all the access issues in one thread in the general bushwalking area. This will lead to more people reading, commenting and sharing ideas.

Access comments about the Wog Wog side of Morton NP should be in
Private property signs on Corang loop
https://www.bushwalk.com/forum/viewtopi ... 26&t=28209

At present there's not enough posts to justify further threads like the Corang one. If this changes then it can be reviewed.

Please take care posting information, and check that it's accurate.

Thank you.

[DavidB]

Proposed Crown Road disposals can be found here https://roads.crownland.nsw.gov.au/

You still have to do some detective work to identify if its potentially relevant to bushwalking issues.

[Lophophaps]

I'm unsure what is meant by the expression "paper road". Public land is generally open to all, especially vehicular and foot tracks. Exceptions include but are not limited to hazardous areas such as bushfires and landslides, reference areas, roads where there's an event such as a bike race or a fun run, and other reasons. Management tracks may have gates to stop vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians. Tracks and roads may have seasonal closures.

As far as I'm aware there is no provision for casual users to be made aware of proposed changes in land tenure. This varies with jurisdiction. In the context of this discussion, one easy way to make interested people aware is for government agencies to make an announcement online and for interested people to subscribe to that advice. This would be fairly easy and cost less than newspaper advertising.

[peregrinator]

This map detail attached perfectly illustrates the difference between Crown Land (here designated in pink as a "public road"), and the roadway as it actually exists (the two parallel red lines). The white areas are (or were, in the small instances at the bends in the road) privately owned.

[rcaffin]

For me, the joke is that we actually had that happen to us.
The local road (originally dirt) went across our farm in not one but TWO places. The Council was persuaded to rectify this.
A side benefit to this was that one of the returned bits of land now hosts some colossal gum trees - a metre in diameter at the base.

Cheers
Roger

[Tantell]

Does that mean we have to climb over or are we able to open it? Cheers

No need to climb over gates. Bushwalking access is via latched pedestrian gates and one stile. No problems with access I was there last week.

Thanks for that. What a great time and easy access we had a few weeks ago. Great well maintained sopt

[johnf]

I'm unsure what is meant by the expression "paper road".

Where a road has been gazetted but no road formed. So it is just a road in theory, but can be traversed by the public.

As far as I'm aware there is no provision for casual users to be made aware of proposed changes in land tenure. This varies with jurisdiction. In the context of this discussion, one easy way to make interested people aware is for government agencies to make an announcement online and for interested people to subscribe to that advice. This would be fairly easy and cost less than newspaper advertising.

Not sure for other states, but for NSW most crown land changes are in the gazette. So many of them, so it is not easy to find any particular one of interest. Be good if they were in a easily parsable format with lot and plan numbers so could be machine read filtered and located on a map. Crown roads that are managed by the council when sold are not in the gazette but locally advertised and at the url DavidB gave https://roads.crownland.nsw.gov.au/

[davidp]

NSW #JustPassingThrough

The issue of Crown Roads (or paper roads) is very important for bushwalker access. These are not private property. They are publicly owned narrow strips of land designed specifically for bushwalkers and others to use. They allow legal access past private property for those "Just Passing Through".

The difficulty is that they can be sold for a nominal amount, at short notice, with little or no consultation and then that strip of public land remains private for ever.

You can see a list of proposed paper road closures in NSW for the next 28 days here.
https://roads.crownland.nsw.gov.au/
Ideally a roster could be established by bushwalkers to check this site every week and alert others of proposed sales. Maybe some clever computer person connected with the peak bushwalking bodies could also set up an automatic alert system for each local region??? Each local bushwalking club could then make a decision as to whether that paper road was important or not. I think that usually if there are public objections to closure then the paper road will not be closed. All that is needed is a few brief emails.

The process for purchasing a Crown road is described on the linked page below.
https://www.crownland.nsw.gov.au/licenc ... crown-road

One of the reasons listed for purchase is to provide certainty of ownership where infrastructure has encroached on the crown road. The converse is also true if bushwalkers find locked gates or Keep Out Signs etc on a paper road they can lodge a complaint to the Crown Lands Office via this email roads@crownland.nsw.gov.au

Interestingly it is not all a one way process. New crown roads can be created in rare circumstances. For example https://www.crownland.nsw.gov.au/sites/ ... n-form.pdf states the following ....
The CLM Act provides the minister with the power to create easements for public access over Crown land in general. The act also specifically provides for the creation of easements to secure ongoing public access over Crown land that is about to be sold or leased. Examples of where easements for public access include walking and bike riding paths that provide connectivity between public reserves, and pedestrian .... access tracks to beaches or other natural features of public value.
So in the case of Corang Lagoon for example the NSW Minister could easily have saved the historic 1960 walking track.

[Warin]

The issue of Crown Roads (or paper roads) is very important for bushwalker access. These are not private property. They are publicly owned narrow strips of land designed specifically for bushwalkers and others to use.

No!!

These 'roads' were NOT designed for bushwalkers to use at all.

These roads were put in by planners to enable roads to be build to serve the future communities. I have one at the back of my place, if will never be built due to the topography that the planner did not look at. As for using it for bushwalking .. that too is a no, far too hard and better tracks to use that avoid cliffs and deep water holes.

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Corang Lagoon is in another thread davidp .. quit casting distorted, irrelevant and ancient information.

The above 'strips of land designed specifically for bushwalkers' demonstrates distortion.
'Corang Lagoon' demonstrates irrelevant and 60's demonstrates ancient.