Griff’s opening the floodgates to river anarchy

[Paul Mobbs]

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River anarchy?.... bring it on!

But seriously, the blissful access situation in Scotland needs greater 
highlighting because people in England just don't know what they're missing. I 
talked to a walker the other day who just refused to believe that Scottish law 
now allows you to legally camp in the open countryside (OK, so I've always 
done that in England anyway, but it seems that most people take land law 
seriously for some reason).


P.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6806361.ece

Griff’s opening the floodgates to river anarchy

Charles Clover 
The Sunday Times, August 23, 2009


It is the time of year when the splash of water is blissfully refreshing in 
the heat of the day and the countryside never looks lovelier than it does in 
early morning or evening. Like my distant neighbour in Constable country, the 
comedian and national treasure Griff Rhys Jones, I can sometimes be found 
paddling up a quiet stretch of river in a canoe.

Messing about in boats and a love of the countryside being such integral parts 
of the national character, the people who commissioned Griff to make a five-part 
series called Rivers (the last part of which goes out on BBC1 tonight) must 
have thought they couldn’t go wrong in encouraging the amiable comic to travel 
the watery arteries of Britain, gamely immersing himself in winter floodwater 
on the Tay, abseiling down waterfalls, bobbing through torrents and paddling 
gently in his leitmotif canoe with his chocolate-coloured labrador.

What they may not have realised at first — although being the BBC they may have 
known but chose to go ahead anyway — was that this beautifully filmed 
travelogue would contain at its core a much harder message, a kind of 
canoeists’ manifesto. Its contention, gently stated on screen but more 
stridently put in articles and interviews, is that our rivers in England and 
Wales are preserves of the privileged — Griff tars stockbrokers, farmers and 
anglers with that brush — that could easily be opened up to all. Griff puts it 
with great charm but nobody should be deceived. This is a polemic as 
ideological as John Prescott on class.

Contrary to the impression Griff seeks to give, the British countryside is not 
a utopia devoid of conflict. It is in fact a matrix of conflicting uses — 
riders, drivers, walkers, farmers, landowners — in uneasy but rather splendid 
equilibrium under the law.

It is all very well to claim, as some members of the British Canoe Union do, 
that landowners have “stolen” the right to roam our rivers from the people, 
who had it before 1830, but this is not quite true.

Our east of England river was developed for navigation in the 1700s. The 
bargemen whom John Constable painted had strict towpaths, not a right to roam. 
They crossed from one bank or another, their horses had to jump gates 
separating different people’s land — hence his painting, The Leaping Horse.

The canoeists’ raised expectations are all this government’s fault — and the 
fault of its devolved administrations. Labour forced through a “right to roam” 
to mountain, moor, down, heath and common land. This turned out to be more 
popular and less controversial than many expected, so it decided it would give 
access to the coast in the Marine Bill. What has given the canoeists the whiff 
of victory is the Scottish Land Reform Act of 2003 which, as well as allowing 
a state-funded land-grab of estates owned by absentee landlords, set up a kind 
of canoeists’ right to roam. This enables Griff to say that there is now free 
access to more than 90% of waterways in Scotland, while 90% of the waterways 
in England and Wales are still private property. No wonder the canoeists think 
they are next in line for the trough.

As a canoeist, I happen to agree that it is awfully complicated to get the 
permission of owners to carry canoes and kayaks round weirs, locks and other 
obstructions in England. I am often deterred and I honestly wish these 
arrangements could be improved. As the chairman of our local amenity group, I 
genuinely prefer people to explore our vale using canoes rather than powered 
craft. But as a member of an angling club, and as a friend of many people on 
the river, I know of conflicts which would only get worse with a canoeists’ 
right to roam. Canoeing is more disruptive than walking. It is often an 
organised, commercially run activity. Freedom for canoeists can be another 
person’s freedom curtailed.

Whatever canoeists may say, their activities do disturb fish. A canoed-over 
chub will not take a bait again that day. Nor will a sea trout. The salmon 
angler may have paid thousands of pounds more than the canoeist for the 
privilege of being on a particular river, so the appearance of a pod of 
canoeists in a pool causes resentment.

Scotland may have legislated for the canoeist, but the conflicts have not been 
resolved. In England, where the rivers have less water in them, we have 
militant canoeing organisations who mislead their members about the law and 
lead mass trespasses. One such event that happens every year on our river sees 
about 300 people enjoying the water, but also picnicking on private land, 
making paths where none exist and peeing in people’s gardens. Walkers are not 
allowed to behave in this way under the rights this government has given them. 
My view is that landowners and anglers might put up with this kind of traffic on 
defined days under a negotiated agreement, but a general right to roam for that 
volume of canoeists on a small, lowland river would be unfair to the majority 
of other users.

Griff has created unrealistic expectations. It would have been wiser, and more 
realistic, to say it is a complicated business to get access to many waterways 
in England and Wales, but it is not impossible. If we truly want our rivers to 
be tranquil wild places, as the Stour is today, perhaps we should leave it 
that way. 


- -- 

"We are not for names, nor men, nor titles of Government,
nor are we for this party nor against the other but we are
for justice and mercy and truth and peace and true freedom,
that these may be exalted in our nation, and that goodness,
righteousness, meekness, temperance, peace and unity with
God, and with one another, that these things may abound."
(Edward Burroughs, 1659 - from 'Quaker Faith and Practice')

Paul's book, "Energy Beyond Oil", is out now!
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Paul Mobbs, Mobbs' Environmental Investigations
3 Grosvenor Road, Banbury OX16 5HN, England
tel./fax (+44/0)1295 261864
email - mobbsey at gn.apc.org
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