That's interesting. Seems like a discrepancy between the "official" truth and the "on the ground" reality.

I was looking through my photos from the trip, and just by chance, one of my photos happens to capture the gate situation!

If you look at the far left of this image, you can see that the vehicle gate is padlocked, but the pedestrian/bike gate is accessible:
https://imgur.com/Q6eTHjt

If the council confirms that the PRoW is indeed suspended for walkers/cyclists, perhaps the compromise to capture the reality would be to change the foot/bicycle tags on the way from "designated" to "permissive"?