The hedge fund manager husband of Pippa Middleton has said his family’s ‘high-public profile’ justifies banning ramblers from walking on a footpath on their £15million estate.James Matthews and the sister of the Princess of Wales, who live in the Grade I-listed Barton Court in Berkshire with their three children, are battling with Britain’s walking charity over access to a footpath on their 145-acre sprawling property.Residents in the picturesque village of Kintbury have accused them of being ‘arrogant’ and ‘alienating the community’ by seeking to cut off a path which some claim has been used for generations.They say the path, Mill Lane, was always left open by the estate’s former owner - the late Habitat founder Sir Terence - on the understanding that it could be used as a public passageway,But the royal-related couple, who bought the estate from Sir Terence in 2022, claim it has never been open to the public and cite security and privacy issues with keeping it open.They installed electric gates and signs reading 'Private: No Public Access' and 'No Trespassing' at both ends of the path, when they moved in.Thirty-five residents, backed by The Ramblers' Association, appealed to West Berkshire Council to have the lane declared a public right of way - but Ms Middleton and her husband have pushed back.A six-day Planning Inspectorate hearing is being held in Kintbury after which the council will decide whether to declare the road private or public land. Pippa Middleton and her husband James Matthews are at war with a group of local ramblers over access to a path on their estate Mill Lane sits on the couple's Barton Court estate - linking a public footpath with a busy main roadIn a witness statement, Mr Matthew said keeping the pathway open would have security ‘implications’ for the family.The former racing driver, who has not been accompanied by his wife at the first three days of the hearing, wrote: ‘There are implications for my family, due to their high public profile, which means there is a need for a higher level of security than would otherwise be the case if the circumstances were different.‘Therefore to improve security for my family, before we moved in, I arranged for an electric security gate to be erected on the Drive.‘It is kept shut, except perhaps on the odd occasion such as when a visit by family or friends is expected. When the gate was put in, no one from the Parish Council or the village came to speak with us, or contacted us, about the gate to say that there was any problem with it being there.’Many villagers say they have used the footpath for decades and it allows them to avoid walking through the dangerous Station Road, which has no pavement.But others, including a former resident of the estate who flew in from Australia to support Mr Matthews, said walkers have only used the route extremely rarely.Mr Matthews admitted his ‘first hand knowledge’ of the route is ‘limited’.He said: ‘Unlike the many witnesses that I am calling to give evidence. I cannot for example give evidence about how it has been used over the decades past.He added: ‘In the last three and a half years since I bought the house, I have seen only a handful of people, on maybe two or three occasions, walking along the Drive.‘Each time I have spoken to them and told them it was not a public footpath. Each time they acknowledged that it was not a footpath, and asked for permission to continue. On each occasion I gave them permission to continue, but for just that once.’