Claim back your Right of Way
Until the evening of the 13th June 2025 it was possible to walk through the passageway beside 48 Malling Street, along the service road behind Caffyns, and reach the roundabout on Brooks Roads, or use this path in the opposite direction. We used this path daily to walk our dogs, reach our cars parked in Davey’s Lane, access Aldi or Tesco, or walk to the Malling recreation ground. You may have been using it for many years.
Not any more
This route, entirely free for everyone to use for decades, has now been closed by Lidl, the new landowner. They plan to remove all the buildings and block this path with a large, single-story supermarket.
Lidl have bought the land. That means we can't do anything, right?
Wrong! We, the people of Lewes, can legally retain this route by adding it to the official council rights of way map. The legal means for adding this route to the map is called a Definitive Map Modification Order (DMMO). We need to collect evidence to show that people have used the path “as of right”, without asking permission, for at least the last 20 years.
We have an approved application
Our application has been added to the register of applications with the East Sussex County Council reference number RWO. You can access the online register via the following link:
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https://row.eastsussex.gov.uk/standardmap.aspx
Click ‘DMMO Register’ on the left hand side and you will see a list of right of way applications appear in the middle of the page. Go to the last page of these and click ‘RWO 330’
What's next, and how can you help?
We need as much evidence as possible from people such as yourself, by filling in a form to confirm people like you to fill in forms giving evidence of use of the route between 48 Malling Street and the Brooks Road roundabout. A form you can fill in can be downloaded from our website. It asks several questions, some of which may seem a bit odd, but which are all needed for legal reasons. There is also a map where you need to indicate which route you used.
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Each member of a household who has used the route should fill in a form. If you know of anyone else who has used the route please let them know about this.
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You can download more copies of this text and the form below.
Click the button below to download the form
Returning the completed form
​Please return completed forms to 50 Malling Street, or you may scan the form and email it to mallingstreetrightofway@gmail.com
but please remember that we do need initials and a date on the map, and a signature on the form.​
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Note: A copy of the form you fill in will be kept for this application only. It will not be used for anything else. It will be passed to East Sussex County Council to process the application to add the route to the map. They might send it to the Planning Inspectorate. The evidence you have provided may be made public (minus any contact details) by the council. We will delete our copy of your form when the path is securely on the map. You can see the policy of the county council at htps://www.eastsussex.gov.uk/yourcouncil/about/keydocuments/foi/dataprotection