No right to roam.

[Chris]

Quite a few organisations are campaigning for improved, increased and better access to the countryside. It seems only folk on this forum are happy with the meagre amount they have!

https://www.ramblers.org.uk/news/were-campaigning-expand-freedom-roam

https://www.bhs.org.uk/support-us/our-campaigns/project-2026/

https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/m...Countryside-access-for-mountain-biking-0?c=EN

https://www.cyclinguk.org/campaign/road-access

This forum will have natural biases in terms of age, background, wealth (often due to age, as we tend to accumulate wealth with age), and those who are into bushcraft often already have access to land on which they do bushcraft.

Plus of course it’s against the forum rules to promote law breaking, so people wouldn’t be able to speak up if they trespass to do bushcraft even if they do so whilst leaving no trace, as that’s still against the law.

 

[nigelp]

This forum will have natural biases in terms of age, background, wealth (often due to age, as we tend to accumulate wealth with age), and those who are into bushcraft often already have access to land on which they do bushcraft.

Plus of course it’s against the forum rules to promote law breaking, so people wouldn’t be able to speak up if they trespass to do bushcraft even if they do so whilst leaving no trace, as that’s still against the law.

OK. Not quite sure how that relates to my reply to @Pattree but good for those with access. Plenty don’t and there are organisations campaigning for increased access for all users of the countryside.

 

[Chris]

OK. Not quite sure how that relates to my reply to @Pattree but good for those with access. Plenty don’t and there are organisations campaigning for increased access for all users of the countryside.

It was a direct reply to your last sentence about folk on this forum being happy with the current rules.

 

[nigelp]

It was a direct reply to your last sentence about folk on this forum being happy with the current rules.

Oh I see.

 

[Suffolkrafter]

Maybe I should clarify my earlier comment. Just because I've not felt restricted in terms of access, doesn't mean that others feel that way and that I think 'the rules' are ok. Having said that, I dont know where the lines should be drawn in terms of land access. Clearly the fight for access to Kinder back in the day was enormously positive, but at what point does privately owned land stay private? Where do we draw that line? What is it about Scotland that means it works there, but isn't as viable here?

My post was partly in reaction to my own reaction to labour's u-turn on right to roam. Their U-turn disappointed me, but then when I thought further, I wasn't sure what difference it would make to me personally. Emphasis on personally.

Where I do feel restricted is in what I can do in the places I do go to. Such as wild camping. And, for example, I'm close to Thetford forest. I wish I could have a camp fire there, but I can't, so I don't. Although plenty do of course.

Anyway, I think I'm so pee'd off with the amount of dog poo bags and tales of water companies being incentivised to cover up sewage leaks, that I've used up all my capacity for frustration.

 

[Pattree]

What is it about Scotland that means it works there, but isn't as viable here?

Exactly.

 

[TLM]

What is it about Scotland that means it works there, but isn't as viable here?

Better whisky?

As said before it works elsewhere too even without whisky.

 

[Broch]

There are plenty of folk in Scotland, landowners and other country dwellers, that would argue it's not working in many places.

 

[Paul_B]

I thought there was a review or one announced on access in Scotland. Something about it needing to be looked at due to a number of issues. I sometimes have bbc Scotland current affairs / news programmes on I the background and I watch the BBC politics show where they go into regional politics in the nations. So I could have misheard or incompletely heard something.

The system up there isn't completely right but perhaps down to the people with lack of respect for how they do what they do, amount of respect for the land, even landowners and others. Will fire scars, rubbish, cans and drinking waste join the dog poo bags in Thetford if we get the Scottish access?

One more thing, on farming land in Scotland where plant crops or livestock are the industry output what is the access like? I know there's the part about round the edges of the field, etc but what is the reality? Highlands and the rough uplands is different I reckon and more suited for open access but I do wonder about more lowland farming areas. The reason is that's possibly more like England even Wales. I don't have much experience of that sort of land in Scotland. I do in England and never had an issue with such lowland footpath use for my access.

 

[Siberian Mongoose]

No ”legal” access to land or most waterways (strangely, a beach is considered a road here!) at all in New Zealand, one can only be on roads (carriage-ways) or ”public” land; this makes it difficult to camp when cycle-touring, have sometimes to clamber over a fence into a field after dark. No gentle rambling through the woods here—well, there aren‘t any woods, only a desolation of grass, Monterrey pines and Monterrey cypresses.

As i know the farmer with the bordering farm i have no problem foraging and travelling through this farm (actually, they live quite a distance away as have thousands of acres), this giving me access at the end of the road to the Misty Mountains.

And i’ve often been harassed by paranoid farmers when parked on a country road: once i had to threaten to push their vehicle across the road as they were blocking my way out of a camp near a river (i had a small four-wheel-drive truck with a canopy on it covering a six foot tray, and it had strong bullbars hehe). I’ve also been harrassed by paranoid farmers whilst cycling!—once during a full moon night-ride my having a rest on the berm of a steep road, and as i was starting to ride off a motorquad (please don‘t use the term ’quad bike’ as it is an oxymoron being short for ’quadracycle’ and ’bicycle’!) suddening from behind rushed up the road and cut me off the rider claiming that he didn‘t know what the blinking red light was (bicycle tail-light): he was summarily blasted by my anger. I’m fiery, which isn‘t appreciated in NZ land of suppressed emotion: it’s like living in a wardrobe with sleepy little Hobbits…and no way out to Narnia.

*************

Adding more to this thread, i thought that the origin of the right to use certain walk-ways and bridle-ways is from common law, and comes from when folks would cross country to go from one village or town to another as being quicker than by carriage-way—this possibly being quite ancient.

Once most folks had land in common; the idea of title to land (ownership) is Roman, and this has been used in the British Isles and elsewhere to confiscate land claiming that they didn‘t own it —which is true, but ignoring the cultural context that no-one owned it— from those whom had been using it for millenia. No-one bought the earth in the first place! The earth is not of us we are of the earth.

 

[Pattree]

I’m UK all common land, rights of way, pathways and bridle ways have been listed and registered. New ones can be established and it is still possible to register ones that were missed thirty years ago but they are treated as new.

 

[Siberian Mongoose]

I’m UK all common land, rights of way, pathways and bridle ways have been listed and registered. New ones can be established and it is still possible to register ones that were missed thirty years ago but they are treated as new.

They did without mandate (in 1986 or ‘87?) the same with common land in NZ, making them into ”National Parks” and ”National Forests”—before that one could live on any common land, and occasionally this happened.

 

[British Red]

What is it about Scotland that means it works there, but isn't as viable here?

Much lower population density

 

[Siberian Mongoose]

Much lower population density

Haha, ’right to roam’ could work here, was even suggested a few years ago…except that most farmers were against it. One problem is the culture of having been a colony, as NZ was set up as a farm for England after industrialisation started, and that at least there seems to be a belief in ’infinite expansion’ {bang}: folks here tend to not respect things, so do themselves in when it comes to possible access; and there is rubbish dumped especially at the sides of rural roads (very noticeable when cycling), of whom the local councils are largely to blame for charging tip (”landfill”) fees, that is when the rubbish problem mostly began. When i lived in the States in the Wild West it was more ”civilised”!

I grew up in farming area, and know that one leaves gates as one finds them, &c; i’m also good at mustering sheep, and getting escapees whether sheep or cattle back to where they (probably) should be—responsibility and respecting.

Oh, the NZ accent and pronunciation is atrocious! {ducks for cover}