April 19th on - South Downs access walks

[Kim]

Hello folks,

A merry band of folk from Brighton (& around)have formed a "non-trespass" walking group, with the purpose of drawing attention to some of the Public Access Land issues on the local Downs. Some sites are pretty INaccesible frankly, still obstructed by barbed wire fences with no through point provided, some left to scrub up so walking is not possible, some lead to a dead end, with no rights of way linking the access areas together, etc.  
Be good to see you if you live down this way:
 
"We've decided on the third Sunday of each month, for ease.  So, for the diary  -

 1. SUNDAY 19TH APRIL -  SOUTHEASE     4.5 MILES

2. SUNDAY 17TH MAY    - FOREDOWN

3. SUNDAY 21ST JUNE     - ALFRISTON       SOLSTICE SPECIAL!

4. SUNDAY 19TH JULY    - CASTLE HILL



NEXT WALK -  SUNDAY 19TH APRIL -  SOUTHEASE     4.5 MILES

 Meet at Southease Station (Grid reference TQ431054) at 11.10

Train leaves Brighton at 10.39, Lewes at 11.03 and London Victoria at 9.47(change at Lewes)

"From Southease Station east up Itford Hill (Access Land), then across Itford Bottom (Access Land) on the south flank of the Hill, and onwards east across to Cow Wish Bottom (Access Land). Then down Cow Wish to Well Bottom (due north of Tarring Neville).  Next, north up Well Bottom (Access Land) - or skirting it if it is too impenetrable - to White Lion Pond and Beddingham Hill (Access Land).  Then return westwards along the brow of the scarp (Access Land) past Red Lion Pond and down Itford Hill again to Southease Station.

 
Cow Wish and Well Bottom (which we call 'bird valley') are in an advanced stage of succession to scrub, with only islands of surviving species-rich Down pasture. Well Bottom may be impenetrable, although a path up it was cleared two years ago.  There may be up to 5 barbed wire fences to cross (as there were on our first walk at Applesham Farm) but that's the only way to walk these naturally connected sites.  Help will be given with fence crossing, as it was at Applesham, using carpet squares to prevent snagging.


 The landscape is fantastic, with wide views to the sea, across the Vale of the Brooks, of Lewes Castle and Mount Caburn, and across the Weald to Ashdown Forest and the eastern High Weald.


 There will be plenty of nodding Cowslips, and lots of Skylark song and Meadow Pipits parachuting into the grass. Other flowers and butterflies will be just appearing.  This is an archaeological landscape with a nationally famous Bronze Age farming village, the mysterious 'Pook's Dyke', and prehistoric round barrows on the high scarp.

 Some walkers may wish to return via the Beddingham Hill bostal to Glynde Railway Station and the Trevor Arms if they don't want to return to Southease."                                      
 

 For more info on Access land -http://www.ramblers.org.uk/freedom/righttoroam/   

ACTION FOR ACCESS
walking and working for a people's countryside

cheers,
kim t, for the group
 
 - If we don't use it, we could lose it.




Subject: South Downs National Park - a sombre note
From:    "David Bangs" <dave.bangs at virgin.net>
Date:    Mon, April 6, 2009 3:39 pm
To:      marion at shoard.freeserve.co.uk
Cc:    g.monbiot at zetnet; mark at tlio.org.uk; chapter7 at tlio.org.uk;
jyoti at tlio.org.uk
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Folks,

See LETTER BELOW ref: the newly declared South Downs National
Park...there's an angle that the media coverage is missing, and it has
something to do with class. Areas adjacent to council estates, plotlands,
and other working class communities on the Brighton Downs have done much
less well than the vast areas of countryside and rural township dominated
by middle and owning class folk.

Question: How can you have a National Park of the chalk South Downs that
misses out over five miles of SSSI chalk cliffs , including 2.5 miles in
pristine form without any coastal engineering?...that misses out one of
the ten best upstanding neolithic causewayed camps in Britain ?...that
misses out one of the two best sites in the whole of Sussex for many
classes of rare invertebrates ?...that misses out an urban fringe valley
that is intervisible with vast adjacent areas of open Downland ??

Answer: You can do it if these sites are next to relatively poor
residential areas, whose Downland users were without the advocates they
needed to win designation for their loved sites.

Kipling and Parson Gilbert White are turning in their graves...and if they
are not, then they go down in my estimation !!

Please circulate this missive,

Dave Bangs
-----

----- Original Message -----
From: David Bangs
To: letters at theargus.co.uk
Sent: Friday, April 03, 2009 2:28 PM
Subject: National Park a sombre note


Dear Letters Editor
See ATTACHED letter...also pasted in below
from Jane, Warren, Jan, Tony and myself, Dave Bangs
best wishes all

..............................................................................

From: Jane Erin and others

c/o 32 Wickhurst Rise

Portslade,

BN41 2WB

Jerin279 at hotmail.com

Tel: 01273 620 815

3rd March 2009

To: The Argus Letters Editor

Dear friend

National Park status for the South Downs

Like all conservationists we celebrate the decision to designate the South
Downs National Park. As campaigners for an inclusive Park boundary around
the coastal conurbation of the Brighton Downs we need, however, to sound a
more sombre note.

For the people of Brighton, Peacehaven and Newhaven were the only
communities which substantially lost out in the Park boundary-making
process. Many vitally important areas of chalk cliff and Down, historic
and prehistoric value, and national importance for wildlife and geology
will be excluded from the new Park.

Toad's Hole Valley Hove, most of the Brighton Racecourse landscape
including all of Whitehawk Hill, all of Newhaven's chalk cliffs and
Downland, all of Peacehaven's cliffs and foreshore, and important areas
around north and east Peacehaven were excluded from the Park, despite
fulfilling all the criteria for inclusion.

This means that Lewes Tescos, the County Hall tower block, A27 Bypass and
Brooks Industrial Estate will now be within the Park, whilst the unspoilt
white cliffs of Newhaven and Whitehawk's ancient stone age camp are now
without the protection and resources the Park will bring.

What all these excluded sites have in common is that they are adjacent to
areas of social deprivation whose residents have more immediate survival
problems to contend with, which make fighting for the National Park
difficult, though their communities love their Downland just as much as
better off residents do.

By contrast, what all the areas newly to be included, (like Ditchling,
Lewes, Midhurst and Petworth, as well as areas far from Downland like
Alice Holt and Woolmer Forest) have in common is that they have many
prosperous folk with the money, cultural resources and confidence to
loudly argue for the protection of their bits of countryside.

The poorer folk of  Hove, Brighton and the townships to its east have been
let down once again by decision makers who listen better to the loud
voices of the privileged than to the muted voices of the rest,

Yours

Jane Erin, ex- secretary Toad's Hole Valleyside Wildlife Group,

Warren Carter, Moulsecoomb Forest Garden and Wildlife Project,

Dave Bangs, ex-chair Friends of Whitehawk Hill,

Jan Goodey, New Roots Allotment coordinator, Moulsecoomb,

Tony Greenstein, secretary Brighton Unemployed Workers Centre