Madam,

Ceredigion County Council placed a road sign next to the Gwbert Hotel, Gwbert, stating that the road up the hill as far as the golf course turn was closed for roadworks for two days, 23 and 24 May.

In order to find the alternative route to Cardigan, via Y Ferwig, one needed to click onto the council website.

However, if one does so, one finds that the ancient bridleway from Gwbert to Cardigan across the middle of Cardigan Golf Course is still shown on the website on a 2016 O S Map.

My grandfather, Joshua Jenkins of Clyn-yr-ynys, always drove his pony and trap to Cardigan along that route prior to 1946. In 2010, the council diverted the bridleway to around the edge of the golf course and reduced it to a public footpath, thereby disallowing usage by horses and mountain bikes.

However, even though they used a Section 119 Highways Act 1980 Diversion Order to move the path, they failed to certify the new path as “fit for public use” as demanded by paragraph 3. Therefore the original bridleway across the middle of the course has never been extinguished in law, so it still legally exists indefinitely.

This is why, six years later in 2016, it still remained on the Ordnance Survey map - and on the council website in 2018!

So anyone with a pony or mountain bike, looking for the easiest route to Cardigan during the closure could have legitimately used that bridleway, because it has never been officially legally closed.

I’m amazed that lawyers involved with Cardigan Golf Club have not spotted this. What if someone is injured or killed by a golf ball? It could cost the club or the council millions of pounds in compensation.

Cardigan Golf Club should investigate. And don’t shoot the messenger.

Yours etc,

Lyn Jenkins, Gwbert, Cardigan.

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