Plympton Pathfields, The Latest News

16. September 2001 - Pathfields set to become a Conservation Area

Plymouth City Council has responded to the Pathfields Groups proposal to establish the Pathfields as a protected Conservation Area.

In September 1999, the Pathfields Preservation Group submitted detailed plans to create a new Conservation Area on the Pathfields to protect its future for ever.  Since then we have been lobbying and sending supplementary and supporting information material to help persuade the City Council to grant Conservation Area status to the Pathfields.  In a recent letter from the City Council's Principal Conservation Officer, the intention is to extend the current Conservation Area of Plympton St. Maurice to include the historic Pathfields. 

"We are absolutely thrilled by the councils response.  If the proposals are fully adopted, we will have secured a lasting safeguard for the land and we will never have to face the encroachment of urban dwellings on this important open space ever again.  It will represent a significant victory for Plympton and the Pathfields Group"

The proposals will form part of the current drafting of Plymouths 'Local Plan' and the publics views will be sought when the draft plans are published later this year. 

The Pathfields Group has already responded to the City Council by expressing our approval though with further negotiation pending about the inclusion of the ancient stone bridge along Dark Street Lane, the protected woodland within the 'Redvers Grove' housing development and the Long Brook which flows through the site.  The City Council have excluded these important historic and environmental features from the Conservation Area proposal and we believe they merit inclusion.

The Group have also made enquiries about allowing access to the southern boundary of the Pathfields along Barbican Road where a lane exists that once allowed access for cattle.  Maps of the area dating back to the 19th Century clearly indicate the lane as an established access (see 1869 map opposite).  One proposal would be to create a narrow pedestrian 'ginnel' with a stile. 

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