ANCIENT rights of way should not have to be listed before 2026 or be lost forever, North Dorset district councillors have said.

They backed a motion proposed by councillor David Milsted calling on Defra to delete the 2026 deadline for the task within the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.

They have also asked for information already gathered by the Discovering Lost Ways Project to be put into the public domain, and agreed to seek the support of MP Robert Walter.

Cllr Milsted said that in 1949 the first definitive map of public rights of way was published.

Each council in the country had been asked to submit the local rights of way but a lot were not recorded, as councils thought some routes were too obvious.

Many routes are used by people making their way to work, or as cut-throughs on their daily journeys.

Cllr Milsted said Dorchester Town Council had discovered it would have to contact every owner of property adjoining a path to undertake the work, paying Land Registry fees for every one of the 200 searches, which was unfeasible.

He said the Discovering Lost Ways Project had spent £7 million of its £15m budget in identifying just five lost ways in Cheshire, but the only way that information was released was through the Freedom of Information Act as the project had not published its findings.

Under new legislation making it much harder to add to the existing list there was a danger that routes could be lost forever.

Cllr David Fox added: "I think it is something we should be supporting. Any of these takes many years to determine.

"There is so much work that has to go into each of these it is unbelievable."

The council unanimously backed the motion.