Any reader of this column who happens to be familiar with patterns of public transport in great cities around the world will have observed the bizarre phenomenon of buses arriving in threes. This occurs a little less frequently than it used to, because of the electronic tracking that now goes on. But there is still a tendency for some “bunching” to take place.

The case work of an MP has a somewhat similar characteristic. Quite apart from the computer-generated multiple identical emails that are now favoured by some campaign groups (for reasons that entirely escape me), genuine individual constituency cases of a particular sort quite frequently come in twos or threes rather than being spaced out across time in the way one might have expected.

I have had exactly this experience in the last few days - with three almost simultaneous (but completely separate) issues about footpaths and bridleways in different parts of West Dorset, all of which arrived within a single week.

This is, of course, part of a wider and longer pattern. Over the past quarter century or so, I have been involved in innumerable issues surrounding the status or future of particular footpaths and bridleways.

These cases are almost never straightforward. They typically involve a tangle of conflicting interests as well as a tangle of tricky legal questions.

What matters to the communities and individuals involved is, of course, the outcomes and the effects those outcomes will have on their lives and businesses. So there are difficult judgements to be made by the courts and public authorities, which really matter.

But, if one steps back from the particular cases and looks at the thing as a whole, one is bound to be struck by the extraordinary achievement that is to be found in every civilised society where conflicting interests and concerns have been reconciled, or at least held in some appropriate balance, by a fine texture of interlocking laws and practices.

This is something that we all too often take for granted. But is actually a precious inheritance that we should celebrate and be prepared to defend.