South Tyneside Council gave parts of the England Coastal Path away to favoured Customers and allowed them to add gates to exclude the Public.

The habit of depriving public access, including Rights of Way etc. started when the Principal Planning Officer in charge of closing access to the river Tyne from Readheads Landing did it in 2013. He got away with it, because Rights of Access are controlled by Parliament and not by the Local Council and by this means quite a long strip of land can be simply given away to anyone who gains control of the land near by.

Ancient and not so ancient tracts of land which include bridal ways, footpaths and promanades as well as Rights of Way, are given to property developers in this way. They did not own these but as soon as the Council approve the adjacent development ownership of the lanes etc. falls into the hands of the developer costing them nothing but inflating the value of their developements considerably.

Protest appears to be a waste of time because the activities of planning officers and others such as enforcement officers and others, are above the law.

This Website was started in response to the, now dormant, Facebook Page Re-Open public access to the River Tyne @ Market Dock South Shields, from which was taken, the photograph of the barrier being erected across the former public footpath.

At the other end of the site the England  Coastal Path is blocked by a fence and ccess to the river via the gap between the two former office blocks was also closed off by a gated private car park.

We discover what lies behind the fence when one of the exclusive flats is put on the market

It looks from here that the planning/enforcement officers are preparing the way forward for Northumberland County Council to give the promenade running alongside the marina to the owners of flats overlooking it.

The link to both the giveaways, the one on Tyneside and the other currently under consideration in Amble, are the Tyneside architects firm: Mario Minchella Limited. The giveaways are from sections of the England Coastal Path.