ARCHIVE: PROWtool

The social and economic benefits of Public Rights of Way - quantifying value for money

Field with treeIn 2006 Defra funded Cranfield University working with Bedfordshire County Council to undertake research to develop a decision support tool (PROWTool) to help local authorities to justify and prioritise rights of way expenditure in line with the achievement of desired social and economic outcomes.

You can download the results from this site.

The PROWtool is in Microsoft Excel format, to use it you must first save the PROWtool locally to your PC (selecting the open option rather than save prevents the tool from working correctly).

(* see user guide for differences between the two versions of  PROWTool)

Why use it?

  • It provides a consistent and objective framework to help appraise the socio and economic value of the public rights of way network.
  • It links physical features and usage with the achievement of key social and economic outcomes at community level (such as community cohesion, community health, culture and leisure).
  • It could help strengthen internal and external applications for funding.
  • It could help decide how to prioritise spending.
  • It is relatively simple to use and only requires a short familiarisation period. In case of any problems, please contact Cranfield University (phone or email details listed below). Once the data for an area has been added, different scenarios can be tested out for suitability.

What do you think of the tool

It would be helpful to know how useful local authorities find this tool. The research report includes 3 Bedfordshire case studies, but it would any further contributions would be welcome and this site can be used to showcase ways in which the tool can be used.

Please contact:

Defra via email at Recreation.access@defra.gsi.gov.uk or by phone at 0117 372 6274.

And

Joe Morris at Cranfield University via email at j.morris@cranfield.ac.uk or by phone on 01234 750111.

You can also visit the Cranfield website for any updates and further information on this topic.

Page last modified: 17 February 2009
Page published: 23 October 2008