Calls have been made for Powys County Council to say sorry for the poor state of paths in the county.

At a meeting of the council’s Planning, Taxi Licensing and Rights of Way committee councillors received the annual report on the work of the Local Access Forum (LAF).

LAF chairman, Graham Taylor said: “Without being too melodramatic I think the council should apologise to the younger generation that it let its Rights of Way (ROW) get to such a bad position.

“The forum has been pressing the council to address the parlous state of ROW in Powys.

“There’s currently 10,000 outstanding issues to deal with and a lot of things are not reported.”

He said that 1,538 new problems were reported during 2023/2024, and 257 were addressed, some of which would have been work from the previous year.

Mr Taylor said: “This is in stark contrast to Bannau Brycheiniog National Park Authority, in the same year they had 407 new problems and dealt with 497 – they had some from the previous year.

“What we have here in Powys is essentially a two tier system. if you live in the national park, you will find the rights of way are generally in pretty good condition, well-marked and signposted.

“If you live outside (the national park) the situation is extremely poor.”

Mr Taylor said the national park makes “really good use” of the volunteers it has to maintain rights of way and encouraged the council to make better use of the 200 or so volunteers it has to help out.

He said the council “should commit to a five year programme to make sure that 50 per cent of the ROW are open and easy to use” and “should be looking to review” its Rights of Way Improvement Plan, last agreed in 2018.