Caroline Lucas will table bill which would extend countryside access to woods and green belt
People across England are right to trespass to stand up for their right to roam, Caroline Lucas has said.
The Green MP will table a bill later in October to allow the public to access woodlands and the green belt in the same way they can currently walk on the coast path.
Currently, the Countryside and Rights of Way (CRoW) Act 2000 gives a legal right of public access to about 8% of England, including mountains, moorland, heaths, some downland and commons, alongside the more recently created England coast path.
Campaigners have asked for this to be extended to cover rivers, woods and green belt land. Ninety-seven per cent of rivers are currently off-limits to the public, and tens of thousands of acres of woodland have benefited from public subsidy, yet remain publicly inaccessible.
Though her campaign sounds radical, Lucas says it is not in reality such a big ask. Talking to the Guardian shortly before launching the bill, Lucas said: “I think if the measures in the bill were to go through, instead of having access to only 8% of English land, we’d be coming up to somewhere near around 30%. So it’s a very modest ask.”
She points out that the bill has important ramifications for inequality. The majority of people who cannot access nature nearby are people in low-income areas who don’t have a car, which is necessary to get to most nature reserves. Those areas also tend to have fewer trees and smaller gardens.
But Conservative ministers say that while this may sound like an attractive idea, they are concerned about the public causing disruption to rural businesses and littering. Lucas says the argument around the so-called irresponsible public is a “distraction”.
“I think it’s a very easy way of trying to close down the conversation. It’s not your wild swimmers who are polluting the rivers and it’s not your people who are exercising the right to roam that are leaving massive decaying bits of equipment, you know, hidden away in woodlands and so forth.”
When I'm on my bike I use footpaths, tracks, 'private' roads, cross meadows, use towpaths, go through woodlands - as long as I'm not obstructing, damaging, inconveniencing or disturbing wildlife, livestock or people then I will continue to. People cannot 'own' the land, at best they are stewards, yes they do have a right to immediate privacy - I wouldn't want people traipsing through my back garden, but those with thousands of acres have no moral right to exclude people from reasonable use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclosure_Acts was where the rot started!
I'm reading two books about the loss of commons and the right to roam at the mo' - very interesting - I had no idea about the history of this branch of our shared heritage. All gone. Taken from us. Mainly by powerful monarchs, their war-lords and then, later on by our parliament.
two books
The very English habit of fox-hunting on horse turns out to be relatively modern and hugely symbolic of the local lord's ability to ride wherever he pleases...
S
(on the look out for Armageddon, on board a Brompton nano & ever-changing Moultons)
I wouldn't want people traipsing through my back garden
Why not? I thought socialists welcomed the proletariat - particularly in their back yards. Or is just other people's back yards you think should be open seasoned?
I wouldn't want people traipsing through my back garden
Why not? I thought socialists welcomed the proletariat - particularly in their back yards. Or is just other people's back yards you think should be open seasoned?
Isn’t that a bit antagonist and OTT? I’m fortunate in having a good sized garden that’s private to me but on the other hand some woodland where I could harmlessly roam is closed off to me and all others. It’s all about balance and balance points, it’s better to have folk able to responsibly roam than to build up resentment in the less entitled. Better to support the poor and develop them into better members of society than to keep them down trodden.
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.
You'd get shot if you started that carry on in NI. I wouldn't chance it. We are however starting to make new cycle paths one of which will be coming through my land in town. Awaiting a consultation from planning due soon.
I intend to try to facilitate because I'd rather have that than more houses even though this means my own personal fortune will be much less because of it.
I understand I can leave something of more value than my own greed for personal gain. ( hope that is understood by other land owners in these times )
You can't get green space back easily after you cement over it. The sooner we realise we are not masters of our domain but are just guests here the longer we'll get to stay in it.
So property only applies when it's small enough or residential so long as not too big?
I struggle with the idea of large scale ownership of land as I don't think it's right in a gut feeling. However I feel the right to own land I have with my modest house but reasonable sized garden is basically the same as all other land owners so how can my rights be kept but others ended? Isn't it the same set of laws?
The other point is that if your issue is with rural land ownership then you need to factor in the idea that such land is almost always being used by a rural business. Whether it's farming, forestry, commercial shooting estates, etc. Even private shooting estates provide employment in a rural area. These areas are not purely leisure grounds.
I've been enjoying the Lakes for almost all my life, I've seen the massive growth in visitor numbers and now all great round. I've also seen the increase in rubbish left in the hills. Laybys where people park with piles of rubbish and dog poo bags even high up parking places. It's like visitors think these rural areas have street sweepers picking up after them. Me and my friends have often picked up bin bags of food and drink cans, used nappies, used dog poo bags, the there's popular wildcamping spots with used toilet paper and even wet wipes in streams that people get water from if they're camping there. People do their business and cover it with a stone but in a place where the stream next to it will overflow in heavy rain. My POV is that we should have responsible access to countryside but there's more and more people going to such places who feel no duty of care or responsibility. I don't think society is worthy of more rights of access.
Southend Sea Front has all the above (except maybe the poo under the stones) should we ban people from there as well?
Rubbish is a big problem everywhere. It's a combination of ignorance, apathy and lack of education with so much more stuff disposable, BBQs, non refundable bottles, cans, packaging, etc. People come to the beach or hills with it all nicely packed, then afterwards find they have a mountain of mucky rubbish that they don't want to take home.
simonhill wrote: ↑14 Oct 2022, 2:37am
Rubbish is a big problem everywhere. It's a combination of ignorance, apathy and lack of education with so much more stuff disposable, BBQs, non refundable bottles, cans, packaging, etc. People come to the beach or hills with it all nicely packed, then afterwards find they have a mountain of mucky rubbish that they don't want to take home.
^^ This. Rubbish is a problem everywhere and littering is down to a minority of people. There’s also an issue with the disposable culture in this and other countries and basically a lot of the stuff shouldn’t be in the shops for morons to buy. There is a cost to disposal and some folk neither understand it or wish to shoulder it.
Education - and I don’t mean academic stuff - is the key to most social behaviours, and if the very wealthy were denied their barriers against the common man then they’d be a lot more interested in making society work for everybody. Of course I understand why folk want and need barriers, but the better way forward is a society where barriers aren’t needed.
Common ownership of all land doesn’t appear to be practical and I’d question it’s desirability too, but we should remember that rough land wasn’t made by anybody and was originally claimed by someone using force. To an extent all land is, from some point in its distant past, purchased stollen goods and we are but custodians of it - a rather uncomfortable and complex thought but not without some truth to it.
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.
Tangled Metal wrote: ↑13 Oct 2022, 11:37pm
So property only applies when it's small enough or residential so long as not too big?
I struggle with the idea of large scale ownership of land as I don't think it's right in a gut feeling. However I feel the right to own land I have with my modest house but reasonable sized garden is basically the same as all other land owners so how can my rights be kept but others ended? Isn't it the same set of laws?
This is all part of the myth that the large land owners promulgate, by conflating their huge estates and normal peoples gardens. In countries with much better land access such as some Nordic countries one has a right of access and to camp pretty much anywhere, but it does come with certain responsibilities and one cannot camp within a certain distance of dwelling and no one is suggesting that people can traipse through ordinary gardens. The large land owners are playing on the British sense of fairness.
I would highly recommend reading Nick Hayes, Book of Trespass. Two interesting things I found in it, is the emotional response we feel when we trespass, a feeling of being in the wrong and ashamed, and that a Public Right of Way (PROW), is not telling you where you can go, but, where you cannot. The book totally altered my conception of the landscape.
Most land was acquired by conflict. Trespass and remind anyone obstructing you that you too will acquire temporary rights through force or by ignoring the laws.
Leaving aside all the historical and moral considerations, and thinking simply about riding a bike in the countryside, I’m not sure an unfettered right to roam, as opposed to the way bridleway legislation works currently, would do much for cyclists, and if it replaced bridleway legislation, it could easily make things a lot worse.
How? Well, the current legislation actually puts a fair few obligations on the landowner, the result of which is that most bridleways can, with a bit of determination, be cycled over. There are gates at boundaries, some basic way marks, and the route has to be kept usable for its intended purpose, and certainly hereabouts they are. If those obligations disappeared under a blanket of rights to roam, we’d in practice be able to cycle in fewer, rather than more, places.
For practical cycling purposes, I’d happily settle for less than an unfettered right to ride my bike everywhere, but would like a right to ride on any path fit for the purpose (as well as existing bridleways, where it is sometimes debatable whether or not they are fit for the purpose of cycling). Such a right would sweep in some bits of footpath that happen to be fit for cycling, and it would sweep in a lot of private forestry access roads, for instance. Defining a “path fit for the purpose” would doubtless keep legal drafters busy for a bit, but they’d find a form of words.
Even permitting cycling on forestry roads snd paths within existing “access land” would be a small step in the right direction. It’s always a bit vexing to come upon “access” woods with nice broad paths, upon which one has no right to cycle, but can freely walk.
