Fight to save paths from 'petulant' Pearson
29 April 2005

Pitshill well-fortified

In a hard-hitting attack on a 'petulant' and 'privacy-obsessed' landowner, we have opposed plans to move public paths on the Pitshill estate, at Tillington near Petworth in West Sussex.   Kate Ashbrook, our general secretary, says 'Charles Pearson, half-brother of Lord Cowdray, wants to move paths away from the house and is petulantly refusing to renovate the mansion until the paths are moved. West Sussex County Council rejected the path-change proposals in 2003, and now he has applied to Chichester District Council instead.'

'Mr Pearson is a local chap. He bought the house more than seven years ago, knowing the paths were there. If he is not prepared to live in the house with the paths on their historic routes, he should sell it to someone who is,' Kate argues. 'For years Pitshill house has been occupied with the paths in situ. They pose no security threat, being some distance from the house, except at one point where the route is separated from the house by a high wall. The house is well fortified. Mr Pearson is obsessed with his privacy and notions of his own importance. The path which sweeps along the driveway through the estate is a wonderful route for walkers and riders, who see the house in its setting of the park. Mr Pearson wants to shove us onto an inferior route along the edge of fields, and through a wood where the public already has a right to walk under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act,' declares Kate.
 

Proposed new bridleway on common land where the public already has the right to walk.

'We shall fight these plans at a public inquiry if necessary, but we hope that Chichester District Council will, like West Sussex County Council, refuse to proceed with them. 'The Cowdray motto is 'Do it with thy might'. We trust that this will be one case where the might of the public overrules that of the Cowdrays,' Kate concludes.

This view of Pitshill would be lost if the path is closed.

source: open spaces society
@2005
 
related:-
Pitshill Tower