The line of the route will be proposed under the procedures set out in the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 and will be established and signed as the intended route for people who want to walk along the coast. However, the access rights for both the route and the wider margin will be provided for under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 and will be subject to the provisions of that Act as amended by the Marine and Coastal Access Bill.
(2) whether land designated as coastal access land under the provisions of the Marine and Coastal Access Bill will have the same status as a public right of way where development or change of use of land is proposed.
The coastal access provisions in part 9 of the Marine and Coastal Access Bill are designed to be flexible so as to minimise the impacts on property and business, and to take account of changes in use and of future developments. The line of the route and spreading room is not fixed permanently and the Bill enables Natural England to review these and propose changes to the Secretary of State (subject to the same system of consultation and representations as the original proposals) at a later date. Certain types of land are excepted from the right of access. The categories of excepted land are set out in Schedule 1 to the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 and they include buildings and their curtilage and land used for the purposes of a statutory undertaking. Land can become excepted from the right of access at any time if some change or development occurs so that it falls into one of the excepted land categories in Schedule 1. Where development is carried out under the General (Permitted Development) Order 1995, the land will be excepted if it falls into an excepted land category. Public rights of way are governed by a separate and different legal framework.