Amateur lawyer steps out for final legal fight

Now 76, Yorkshireman Colin Seymour says that his failing hearing and eyesight could mean the end of his days championing public access to bridleways, footpaths and highways.

The former teacher claims to have never lost a case during more than 100 court appearances and about 50 public inquiries.

He once quoted from a Latin document dated 1472 which forced a council to resurface an unmade track, giving motorists a useful short-cut.

Over three decades he has fought many battles with councils and landowners over issues relating from the destruction of ancient hedgerows to the loss of public rights of way.

In 1997, he quoted from an Enclosure Act of 1765 to prevent a hawthorn hedgerow in Flamborough being uprooted to make way for a bowling green.

This week, Mr Seymour was at a public inquiry into whether the public has a right to cross privately-owned land at the former site of Methley Junction Colliery at Methley, near Leeds, near where he lived in the 1970s and 1980s.

He is being opposed by the might of Network Rail, which has drafted in its own legal and technical experts, and another landowner who has taken on two rights of way consultants to argue against public rights of access.

Mr Seymour, who now lives in Bridlington, presented the inquiry with a huge sheaf of documents that he says proves that paths running down to the river Calder are ancient highways that have been used for centuries.

He argued that a ferry took passengers across the river until the 1930s and that rights of way existed to allow people access to the ferry from the Leeds to Pontefract road.

He told the inquiry that he had won many environmental cases in court over the years, securing victories against organisations including the National Coal Board, British Waterways, British Rail and councils.

The land in question, he said, had become a "fortress" because of barbed wire and a missing bridge which prevented walkers crossing a railway cutting.

A previous landowner had placed signs warning that "dogs would be shot" and walkers had felt threatened, he added.

Mr Seymour is giving evidence in support of Methley resident, Mr Major Croman, 84, who has campaigned for the paths to be given the legal protection of a "modification order".

Speaking outside the public inquiry, Mr Croman said it was good to have Mr Seymour on his side.

"He's fantastic – what he doesn't know about footpaths isn't worth knowing."

Mr Croman said the dispute over access went back to 1991 when access to the former colliery site was prevented by a locked gate and notices about "private property".

In about 2007 he received a report commissioned by Leeds Council which suggested that no rights of way existed. Mr Seymour approached him and the pair began the legal process that resulted in this week's inquiry.

Jeremy Greenwood, a liability negotiations manager for Network Rail, cited various Railways Acts and Victorian-era maps which he said proved that a public footpath had never existed across the railway bridge, which is now demolished.

Leeds Council is remaining "neutral" during the inquiry, having been previously ordered by a Government inspector to advertise its intention to introduce the "modification order".

During a break in yesterday's proceedings Mr Seymour, a former marathon runner who complains of failing health and now wears a hearing aid, said he expected this to be his final court battle.

"It will probably have to be my last because I can't see see and I can't hear. I am knackered."

But a colleague and friend from Methley chipped in: "He has been saying this for years and still he comes back."

'The law was the only way to win'

Professional lawyers respect him, public bodies probably fear him and ramblers love him.

Amateur lawyer Colin Seymour began championing the rights of the "little man" against the rich and powerful when, 30 years ago, the coal board planned an open cast mine near his home at Methley, near Leeds.

"I realised the only way to beat them was to use the law."

He went on to take on many public bodies and became an expert in tracking down and understanding legal and planning documents going back centuries.

During two cases, his submissions led to changes in the law.