Email to the Chief Executive Officer and the Trustees of Shropshire Wildlife Trust
Mr G and Trustees,
I wish to bring to your attention the terrible impact that your charity’s deliberate obstruction to my legal right of way and of the unfathomable distress and chronic ill health that has resulted from this wickedness.
This is a summary of our endless and still ongoing dispute with Shropshire Wildlife Trust’s obstruction to the vehicular usage of our Prescriptive Right of Way, this has now spanned 15 years!
Vehicles were used by myself and others up until Shropshire Wildlife Trust removed the 10 foot gate (which separates Cramer Gutter field and Catherton Common) and replaced it with a 4 foot gate thereby stopping any vehicular access.
Shropshire Wildlife Trust’s despotic attitude is still ongoing fuelled by endless procrastination and their denial to put back the track to a usable state.
There is a chronological list of events that have occurred since 2007, in particular this evidence wholly refutes the Conservation Manager's statement dated 14th September 2022 and of your objection to our Land Registry application.
“The Trust has not hindered your access to property name* (redacted) in any way - we removed the narrower gate once you had made us aware that you used this route to access your cottage.”
It took 8 years for the 10 foot gate to be replaced!
You were immediately made aware that you had obstructed my legal right of way. The ten foot gate was replaced sometime between 27th May 2010 and 5th July 2010. Prior to the change of the gate we were using this route regularly to access our property, please see the witness statements, and the photographic evidence of a visible track on the ground.
I wrote immediately to Shropshire Wildlife Trust about the obstructive gate, your Wildlife Officer was tasked with producing a permissive access document which referred directly to my use of the Cramer Gutter track.
Email from the Wildlife Officer dated 11th July 2011 referring to the Cramer Gutter route:
“I haven’t forgotten you! I have at last got our land agent to put something together for permissive access. I need to write it out and will do as soon as I have the time-the answer is yes to vehicular permissive access (but I will need to get the document to you). “
Neither Meredith nor I can stay at the cottage as the heating is via a Rayburn which uses coal! So no one will deliver and no work men will visit as there is no vehicular track, because of this the property hasn’t undergone any remedial work nor have we been able to maintain it!
Water pipes burst in 2011 still haven’t been repaired, see the email below sent to the Wildlife Officer dated 26th July 2011:
Dear Ms X,
Whilst one appreciates how busy you must be it is essential that you acknowledge the hardship the Trust's annexing of my property has caused.
Winter is getting unpleasantly close, the property (due to the severe leaks in January that it suffered) is deteriorating in value and it is in desperate need of my builder's attention and of course he can't get to the property due to the replacement of the original five bar gate by the Trust with one that allows pedestrian and equine access only.
Email from the Reserves Manager (CC: Wildlife Officer) dated 1st August 2011: Subject: property name* Access:
“I will consider the route through Cramer Gutter but as there are animals on this site and use of this route involves removing the gate this will be more complicated to accommodate." Cattle were already on the site as evidenced by the photographs and had always been there as they were rotated on and off.
Email
from Wildlife Officer dated 20th September 2011:
Subject: RE: Property name*
“I have just had a word with my colleague the Reserves Manager who has said that permissive access to your house is certainly possible.
Hopefully this means that nothing will have changed and that you can access your property in the same way that you have always done, only there will be a more formal agreement.” This email refers specifically to the Cramer Gutter route!
“Gate leading onto Catherton Common from Shropshire Wildlife Trust Field. This was put in some time ago by the SWT to stop vehicles from using the route and works very well.”
This statement dated 30th September 2011 is confirmation of your deliberate obstruction to my legal right of way, made by your warden:
Website address redacted*
Email from the Reserves Manager dated 17th April 2012:
“If Mrs W* does have a right of access across the land which can be proved to exist then I will have the gate replaced with one which can be used by vehicles but until this can be done then I will leave the existing gate in place as I do not want to go to the expense of changing it if I do not have to.”
I was astonished by the claim that the gate was replaced as soon as the Trust was made aware that I was using it?! In fact the Conservation Manager in her letter dated 29th June 2015 wrote that the Trust refused to reinstate the gate!
Sometime between 27th May 2010 and 5th July 2010 the original ten foot gate which separates Cramer Gutter field from Catherton Common was replaced with a four foot gate, so we were physically unable to drive to our property.
The four foot gate was replaced with a ten foot gate in the first week of August 2018, it took over 8 years for the gate to be reinstated, during this time the track has been allowed to fall into complete disrepair and is now totally unusable.
Furthermore, I even offered to finance the two tyre track which was environmentally friendly via the Cramer Gutter route but permission was denied and remains so, so that we still have no vehicular access to the property.
I was most perplexed by the Trust’s objection to my Land Registry application.
The evidence that I submitted to HM Land Registry is the same evidence that I submitted to your former Chief Executive Officer in 2015. Your Reserves Manager’s recollection appears to be incorrect, I am at a total loss to understand his thinking on the matter. My evidence wholly disproves his version of events, didn’t someone review this before objecting to it?!
According to the Trust it did not receive any statutory declarations, it has made claims which were wholly untrue regarding the history of the property, its use, and has made other misleading statements. I refer you to your copy of the 295 page document and the evidence posted on our website.
I submitted the 295 page document with ten statutory declarations, the document contained a history of the property, listed its previous owners, that it was a main residence not holiday home, that it had been in my family’s ownership since 1969, aerial photography of the track in 1999, this documented unrestricted vehicular use without force, secrecy or permission covering a forty year period, this document was sent to your former Chief Executive Officer on 27th May 2015.
Email from my former mediator to your former Chief Executive Officer dated 9th June 2016:
“Mrs W* has assembled a number of witness statements by Cramer Gutter residents, all of which confirm the routine vehicular access that formerly existed to property name*, and its use by cars, vans and the like over many years. What’s more, aerial photographs taken in 1999 show a clear track leading across Cramer Gutter field to the house….”
Email from your former Chief Executive Officer to my former mediator dated 9th June 2016:
“Mrs W* and her brother before must have had access to Lower Marsh Farm whether by water tight legal means, by prescriptive right”
Email from your former Chief Executive Officer to XX (Natural England) dated 17th May 2018:
Your former Chief Executive Officer states “you and I reached agreement that Mrs W* had a prescriptive right of access to her property by the Cramer Gutter route.”
I have a Prescriptive Right of Way with vehicles and at all times confirmed HM Land Registry and by yourselves and Natural England but I cannot drive to the property because my legal right of way has been allowed to fall into complete disrepair!
My Prescriptive Right of Way was in your charity’s deeds all along. You were well aware of my use of this route due to the risk assessment that Shropshire Wildlife Trust undertook prior to the purchase of the Cramer Gutter field in 1988.
Furthermore, B* (the funding body) stipulated conditions, that the purchase of Catherton Common was to be to the benefit of people residing on the common, that there should be no restriction of access.
The refusal to reinstate the gate upon submission of the evidence on 27th May 2015 is a breach of contract.
The claim made by Shropshire Wildlife Trust that there was no evidence of a track on the ground when the gate was changed or to feign ignorance of the vehicular use of the route is refuted by the photographic and other evidence, to continue to make these claims has severely undermined your charity’s position.
Shropshire Wildlife Trust withdrew its objection to my Land Registry application without any pre-conditions and Natural England did not offer an opinion!
A selection of the evidence has been uploaded onto our website:
http://obstructed-prescriptive-right-of-way.info/
Of the 12 pages, 4 are available for you to review:
Photographs of my walking across Catherton Common via the Jack Mytton Way taken over the last 14 years.
Costs x 15 years
Impact Statements
Photographic Evidence
The chronological list of events is over 16 pages long and is available upon request.
Finally, I wish to draw your attention to the document produced by The Charity Commission ‘Vicarious liability of a charity or its trustees’.
This is of particular relevance as it addresses the actions taken by yourself, your former Chief Executive Officer and of the trustees present and past:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vicarious-liability-of-a-charity-or-its-trustees.
I will be 90 years in June and I have undergone two knee replacement operations on the same knee, one in 2010, the second in 2023, and now due to the terrible condition of the track I am now unable to even walk to my property.
Meredith and I have suffered terribly over the last 15 years, we have been severely disadvantaged by having no vehicle use over our Prescriptive Right of Way. We despair of the 15 years of misery and wasted life!
It is now incumbent upon Shropshire Wildlife Trust to rectify the 15 years of suffering that has been caused.
I require a written response by Thursday 31st July 2025.
Yours sincerely
W* (Mrs)