Closed Newmarket footpath could soon be re-opened

A much-used public footpath, linking Newmarket’s Exning Road with Willie Snaith Road and the Studlands Park estate, which was illegally closed, could soon be re-instated.

The path, which provided parents and pupils of Laureate Community Academy with a safe route to the Exning Road school, was fenced off by the owners of Allied Mechanical Services when they built a new office complex in Willie Snaith Road, and extended its car park over what was the footpath’s route.

The path’s future had first come under threat back in 2022 when Newmarket Town councillors appealed to regular users to support plans to have it officially designated as a public right of way (PROW). Studlands Park resident Barry Knott joined the campaign to pressure the company to reinstate the path but in May last year Allied Mechanical’s office closed when the firm went into receivership after nearly 40 years of trading, making 70 workers redundant.

At a meeting last week, members of the town council’s development and planning committee were told West Suffolk Council had confirmed the prospective buyer of the vacant office block had been informed the re-instatement of the footpath was a condition of the sale.

Councillors were also told that although the path had not been designated as a PROW a covenant had been in existence since 2005 that it could be used as a public path. In closing the path, Allied Mechanical had breached planning regulations but no enforcement action was taken by the district council.

Committee members agreed that a request be made to Suffolk County Council to include the path on the county’s definitive map of public rights of way.