Golf buggies on footpaths and bridleways

The starting point: a buggy is a motor vehicle

Almost all of the confusion here comes from the buggy looking small and slow and quiet, and from most of its use being on private land where none of this applies. In law it is a mechanically propelled vehicle, and that is the category that decides where it may go.

On private land, with the landowner's permission, that category barely matters. A golf course, a farm, a holiday park, a showground or an estate can allow buggies across ground it controls, and the rules that apply are the ones the landowner sets. The picture changes the moment the buggy crosses onto a public right of way or a road.

What each kind of right of way permits

Public rights of way in England and Wales come in four kinds, and the differences are precise. Scotland has a broader statutory right of responsible access, but it applies to being on foot, by bicycle and on horseback, and does not extend to driving a motor vehicle.

• Public footpath: on foot only. A motor vehicle has no right to use it.
• Bridleway: on foot, on horseback and by bicycle. Motor vehicles are not included.
• Restricted byway: adds non-mechanically propelled vehicles, such as horse-drawn carriages. Motor vehicles are still excluded.
• Byway open to all traffic: carries vehicular rights, but the vehicle must be road legal, which a standard buggy is not.

The byway that is not the loophole it looks like

A byway open to all traffic does carry a public right for motor vehicles, and that is where people think they have found the answer. The difficulty is what "road legal" requires. A byway of this kind is treated as a road for the purposes of the traffic acts, so a vehicle using it needs to satisfy the requirements that go with that, including registration, insurance and construction and use standards.

A standard golf buggy meets none of those as supplied. There is a route to making a buggy road legal, and it is real, but it involves changes to the vehicle and a registration process rather than a decision to drive it somewhere. Our guides on road legality and on registering a buggy for road use set out what is actually involved.

Pavements, and why they are not a grey area

Driving a motor vehicle on a footway beside a road is an offence, and it has been since the Highway Act 1835. It does not depend on the size of the vehicle, on how slowly it is driven, or on whether anyone was inconvenienced.

This comes up most often where a site sits on both sides of a public road and it is tempting to hop along the pavement between the two. It is worth resolving properly at the planning stage: either the buggy stays entirely on one side, or the crossing is arranged with the highway authority, or the transport happens another way. It is exactly the situation that produces a complaint, and the complaint tends to arrive from a neighbour rather than from the police.

The mobility vehicle exception, correctly stated

People often half-remember that some small vehicles may use pavements, and they are thinking of invalid carriages, the legal term covering mobility scooters and powered wheelchairs. Those are a defined class with limits on weight, speed and design, and vehicles meeting the definition may use footways subject to their own rules.

A golf buggy is not one, and it does not become one because a disabled person is using it. The class is defined by what the vehicle is, not by who is driving. This matters because the mistake is made in good faith by venues trying to help, and it puts them on the wrong side of the law while they think they are doing the right thing.

Where a venue needs to move disabled visitors across its own site, the answer is to run buggies on land it controls, which it is free to do, and to plan the routes so no public right of way or pavement is needed. That is also what the reasonable adjustments duty is generally looking for.

If your route has to cross something public

Sites are rarely tidy, and plenty of them are split by a lane, a public path or a road. The workable answers are practical ones: design the route so the crossing is not needed, trailer the buggies between the two parts, seek permission from the highway authority or landowner for a specific crossing point, or use a vehicle that is genuinely road legal for that leg.

What does not work is assuming a short distance will not matter. This is a good thing to settle in writing before an event, and licensing officers and safety advisory groups will often ask about it directly for anything of size.

Common questions

Can I drive a golf buggy on a public footpath

No. A public footpath carries a right of way on foot only, and a golf buggy is a motor vehicle. Using one there without the landowner's permission is trespass, and where the path runs beside a road, driving on the footway is also an offence.

Can a golf buggy use a bridleway

No. Bridleway rights cover walking, horse riding and cycling. Motor vehicles are not included, and a restricted byway does not help either, as it extends only to vehicles that are not mechanically propelled.

Does it change if the driver is disabled

Not for a standard golf buggy. The pavement exception applies to invalid carriages, a defined class covering mobility scooters and powered wheelchairs, and it is defined by the vehicle rather than the user. A golf buggy does not fall within it.