You've found a lane blocked by a fallen tree, or so badly rutted it's not passable, or gated where it shouldn't be. You report it. Then, usually, nothing happens. Not because nobody cares, but because the system for fixing rights of way is slower and more fragmented than most riders expect.
This isn't a reason to stop reporting. It's a reason to report properly, to the right people, with the right information, so the report actually has a chance of going somewhere.
The realistic picture
Local councils are legally responsible for maintaining rights of way, including byways open to all traffic (BOATs). In practice, most highways teams are underfunded and covering huge networks with a handful of staff. A report submitted through a generic council contact form can sit unread for months, or get logged without any follow-up.
That's not an excuse to skip reporting to the council. It's the first step, and it creates an official record. But if you want something to actually happen, it usually needs to be one part of a wider approach, not the only one.
The better route
The Trail Riders Fellowship (TRF) and local green lane access groups exist precisely because individual reports rarely move the needle on their own. They have named contacts inside councils, they track patterns of damage and closure across a whole area rather than one lane at a time, and they know which issues are genuine highway authority failures versus which need a different kind of pressure entirely.
If you're not already a TRF member or in touch with a local group, that's the first call to make when you find a serious problem. They can tell you whether the issue is already known, whether it's already being chased, and what evidence would actually help.
Flagging the issue on Holloway matters too, and it's worth doing immediately, before you've even contacted anyone else. Other riders heading the same way need to know a lane is blocked or damaged before they commit a Saturday morning to it. Holloway's closure and hazard status is there for exactly this reason, and it doesn't require you to have all the answers, just what you saw.
"A report that just says 'lane's blocked' isn't much use to anyone. A grid reference, a date, and a photo turns it into something a council or the TRF can actually act on."
— Mat Stuckey, founder of Holloway
Who actually has the standing to push a council
Individual riders can and should report problems, but councils respond differently depending on who's asking. TRF regional reps, parish councils, and organised access groups tend to carry more weight because they represent an ongoing relationship with the highways authority, not a one-off complaint. They can also escalate through formal channels, like requesting a Traffic Regulation Order review or querying a definitive map error, that an individual report usually can't trigger on its own.
This is why a good report doesn't try to solve the problem itself. It gathers the evidence, gets it to the people who can carry it further, and lets them do the follow-up.
How to document a blockage or damage properly
If you want a report to go anywhere, treat it like evidence, not a complaint. That means:
- An accurate grid reference or GPS coordinate, not just "near the ford" or a road name.
- The date and time you found it.
- Clear photos, ideally one showing the whole obstruction in context and one closer up.
- A plain description of what's actually wrong: fallen tree, illegal gate, surface washed out, fly-tipping, and so on.
- Whether the lane was passable at all, or completely blocked.
Send this to the council's rights of way team, copy in your local TRF rep or access group if you have one, and log it on Holloway so other riders see it straight away. Three different audiences, one set of facts.
Damage versus deliberate blocking
These are different problems and worth telling apart. A fallen tree, a washed-out ford, or a rutted surface after heavy rain is damage. It's often nobody's fault, and it usually gets fixed, eventually, through the ordinary maintenance process.
A locked gate that wasn't there before, a fence built across a right of way, or a "private road" sign nailed to a post at the entrance to a BOAT is something else entirely. That's an obstruction, and depending on the circumstances it may be an unlawful interference with a public right of way. These cases are exactly where the TRF and local access groups earn their keep, because pushing back on deliberate obstruction usually needs more formal pressure than a polite email.
If you're not sure which one you're looking at, report it as you found it and let the people who deal with this regularly make the call. Don't assume a locked gate is legitimate just because it looks solid and official.
Why this still matters even when it's slow
None of this fixes a blocked lane overnight. But every properly documented report adds to a record that TRF reps and access groups use to build a case over time, whether that's for maintenance funding, a formal obstruction complaint, or simply proving a pattern of neglect on a particular route.
A single vague message to a council achieves almost nothing. A dated, located, photographed report sent to the right people, with the lane flagged on Holloway so the wider riding community isn't caught out, gives the problem an actual chance of being fixed.
Holloway's part in this
Holloway shows every legal green lane in England and Wales for free, along with its difficulty, hazards, and current closure or TRO status, so you always know before you set off whether a lane is worth riding that day. Reporting a problem through Holloway takes minutes and puts the information in front of every rider planning the same route.
For £20 a year, Holloway Premium adds full route planning with road-following connectors between lanes, GPX export, exact coordinates, live weather, and navigate-to-start, so you can plan around a known closure rather than finding out about it at the gate. Explore the map at Holloway and see what's open near you before your next ride.
For more on how the wider community keeps lanes usable, see how one inconsiderate rider can close a lane for everyone and how to get started contributing to a green lane community.