Council staff trying to clear a 20-year backlog of work have been hit by a major mapping clanger.

Experts from the Government's Countryside Agency worked from aerial photographs as they prepared proposals for access by the public to open countryside.

But a storm erupted when it went for consultation because some horrified householders discovered the paths went through their gardens and angry farmers found people would tramp through their fields.

It has resulted in the map makers coming down to earth with a bump and working on the ground to make amendments.

But Bradford Council's countryside service, which is already suffering a huge work backlog, will not get the information it needs until Christmas, though it expected the details next month.

The Council's senior rights of way officer, Danny Jackson, told Bradford Council's Environment Scrutiny Committee that staff working to prepare a statutory map of rights of way across the district needed the information to feed its own paths into the countryside access.

That work has fallen behind by 20 years because of a lack of funding for the former separate rights of way service and the workload of the harassed staff.

Last year the service received one of the worst reports the Council's best value team had ever prepared.

As a result it has been merged with the successful countryside service and the committee was told in progress reports by officers of vast improvements. The Council's head of planning and performance, Chris Hughes, said since November last year seven legal orders necessary for the Council's rights of way map had been completed, compared with only one since 1993.

He told members five other orders were also being worked on for estimated completion next March.

Chairman Councillor Keith Thomson said: "The transfer of the rights of way service has been the right decision.

"It was painful for the rights of way staff to have taken such a battering. But this is the most pleasing report the committee has had."

Young people who attended the meeting after presenting a petition asking for an official graffiti wall won the support of all the members.

The scrutiny committee will now recommend the ruling executive committee to agree its implementation.

Brian Dobson, of the Council's graffiti unit, said: "Some of the stuff we clean off at present is fantastic."