> nor is there any provision preventing them from making it as difficult as they can

Whilst that might be accurate in the detail of the law, it appears to contain something basically malfunctional.

It seems to render the law effectively meaningless. If you are actually prevented from doing something, what has happened to your right to be allowed to? If there were public rights-of-way across someone's farmland, but they built walls around it, there would seem to be some kind of problem. (Or maybe a better example would be a visibility-cloaking device that made it look like there was a wall -- is that prevention, or just making things less easy? Does that make it OK?)

If the letter of the law supports the frustration of the intent of the law, something is wrong, surely.