Whenever the situation is too far in the favour of one side there's a problem. Back then it was in the favour of landowners. If you push things too far in favour of open access you might get things going the other way.I’m several decades too young (Not a phrase that I use often.) to have been part of the Mass Trespass but the access to Kinder Scout, The Pennine Way and ultimately the National Park were not the generous or willing gift of landowners. No one was prepared to meet half way.
They were won.
I honour those who cared, particularly those who went to prison to give me free access to the moors.
“So I’ll walk where I will over moorland and hill
And I’ll lie where the bracken it’s deep.
I belong to the mountains and the clear crystal fountains,
Where the grey rocks are jagged and steep.
I’ve seen the white hare in the gullies and the curlew fly [low] overhead,
And sooner than part from the mountain,
I think I would rather be dead.”
Ewan MacColl.
The only time that I saw the white hare in the groughs ( as I know the gullies ) they were moulting, half brown and half white and matched the brown peat and the grey gritstone in the bottoms perfectly. I’ve only ever seen curlew fly low.
Many of those 2,400 areas do not have any marked access at all. No one is going to gift us access - yes we can ask first, we can offer to make styles and gates but in many cases and ultimately it will take pressure from those of us who care.
Land almost always has a use in the countryside that's not leisure. Leisure is the secondary use. When we go home the farmer quite often carries on working. There needs to be balance between competing uses. I wonder if we've reached it already.