Thread: Unformed legal road/ Paper Road access

Originally Posted by bully

I have a farm with paper road in mind.... It's a bulldozed track maintained by the farmer, through the middle of his land.

But the road isn't his land, thats the point. He just owns land either side of the road.

Originally Posted by bully

So if you were the farmer.... You wouldn't mind strange people passing through your padocks/gates and stock any time they wish and maybe carrying a firearm?

They could always fence off the road and keep their stock on their own land if they're that worried about sharing public land with other users?

Originally Posted by bully

It could also be unsafe, what if the farmer is shooting and doesn't know someone is there, among other hazzards, the way the world is if something happened it would be the farmers fault for sure!

Of course it would be the farmers fault if they shot someone, thats pretty obvious. Target identification and safe shooting directions etc should apply regardless, but especially near roads or other public spaces.

Originally Posted by GravelBen

But the road isn't his land, thats the point. He just owns land either side of the road.



They could always fence off the road and keep their stock on their own land if they're that worried about sharing public land with other users?



Of course it would be the farmers fault if they shot someone, thats pretty obvious. Target identification and safe shooting directions etc should apply regardless, but especially near roads or other public spaces.

I never said shoot someone, you just have to scare someone to be in trouble. There's other typical farm hazards too.
I guess it depends a bit on the track and farm your talking about, as each situation is different. (I'm thinking track right through the middle, others might be along the edge)
I'm not one to be walking through someone else's property weather there's a paper road or not, I would ask. Good luck with the fuck you it's a public road I'm going anyway approach.

Originally Posted by bully

I never said shoot someone, you just have to scare someone to be in trouble. There's other typical farm hazards too.
I guess it depends a bit on the track and farm your talking about, as each situation is different. (I'm thinking track right through the middle, others might be along the edge)
I'm not one to be walking through someone else's property weather there's a paper road or not, I would ask. Good luck with the fuck you it's a public road I'm going anyway approach.

I didn't say anything about not talking to them first, its the polite thing to do and plenty of farmers are good sorts and offer the use of their nice convenient track instead of a paper road with fences across it etc. If they ask me not to use it temporarily for a good reason thats fine, I'm a reasonable person too.

But the simple fact is they don't have any right to stop people using it - if you're walking along the road then you aren't walking through their property, legally it would be like trying to stop you going past their property on a formed road. If they put a sign up warning of any unexpected hazards I imagine that would cover most of their H+S responsibilities well enough.

Probably worth adding too though, if access along the legal road isn't practical (cut off by a cliff or river etc) you don't have any rights to go through the neighbouring land to get around the obstacle. Legal access isn't a guarantee of practical access.