[Diggers350] New age mass trespassers demand right to roam ministers 12,000-acre Berkshire estate
Tony Gosling
tony at cultureshop.org.uk
Fri Aug 12 12:44:52 BST 2022
What else can we do?: new age trespassers
demand right to roam ministers 12,000-acre estate
Emacs!
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/07/trespassers-demand-right-to-roam-12000-acre-estate-englefield-richard-benyon
loys more here https://www.theguardian.com/environment/access-to-green-space
Campaigners visit Berkshire estate belonging to
Richard Benyon, minister in charge of access to nature
The Right to Roam group had previously met Benyon
to discuss their ideas to open up at least
publicly- funded woodlands and the green belt to
walkers. Photograph: Peter Flude/The Guardian
<https://www.theguardian.com/profile/helena-horton>Helena Horton
Sun 7 Aug 2022 18.08 BSTLast modified on Mon 8 Aug 2022 12.47 BST
Its hard to know what access to nature minister
Richard Benyon normally finds in his gigantic
Berkshire estate when he strolls out on a Sunday
afternoon. It is unlikely, however, to be a
loudly singing group of activist trespassers,
dressed up as psychedelic animals and accompanied
by an all-female morris-dancing troupe.
But thats what wandered up his drive on Sunday,
when protesters visited the Englefield estate,
calling on Benyon to open it up to the public and
extend access for everyone to
<https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/apr/20/fears-over-right-to-roam-in-england-as-ministers-wind-up-review>green
space across England.
The Guardian witnessed about 150 people strolling
into the estate, including the morris dancers
(who came in peace, leaving their traditional
sticks at home), and Nadia Shaikh, a nature
conservationist and one of the organisers of the event.
This, what we are doing now, is a freedom we
should have, she said. So we are acting as if
we already have that freedom. We want the joy of
meeting in the commons with music and the
richness of all these conversations and different
people. So yeah, I mean, what else can we do when
you ask repeatedly, politely, and its still a no?
When asked why she chose this particular estate,
she said: Well, hes the access to nature
minister! So it seems totally appropriate to come
and experience the freedom and the land that he has.
As minister in charge of access to nature, Benyon
was involved in the
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/04/right-to-roam-england-access-to-green-space-proposals>Agnew
review, which looked at broadening access to the
countryside, but which was
<https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/apr/20/fears-over-right-to-roam-in-england-as-ministers-wind-up-review>shelved
with little explanation. Just 8% of Englands
land has free access, including coastal paths and
moorlands, and campaigners want this to change.
<https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/may/08/picnic-protesters-duke-of-somerset-woods-right-to-roam-totnes>
Access is vital: picnicking protesters target
Duke of Somersets
woods<https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/may/08/picnic-protesters-duke-of-somerset-woods-right-to-roam-totnes>
The 12,000-acre (4,860ha) Englefield estate,
which has been in the Benyon family for hundreds
of years and is the largest in West Berkshire,
contains land that was once a common, before the
Enclosures Act meant it could be absorbed into
the private estate. It also, according to the
Ramblers, contains lost footpaths. This is where
the dancers and musicians were heading. Although
those assembled were breaking civil law by
trespassing, the gamekeepers did not intervene
and watched the strange, mystical spectacle from atop a hill from their SUV.
Nick Hayes, the author of The Book of Trespass
who helped organise the event, gave a history of
the land: Looking at 18th-century tithe maps, we
can still read the names of the commoners who
held rights to farm the land; and looking at
archaeological LIDAR data we can still see the
commoners plough lines buried beneath the deer
park. The ancestor of our current minister for
access to nature, also called Richard Benyon,
began the process of enclosing his estate in 1802.
Over the next 20 years he moved an entire
village out of sight of Englefield house to make
way for his deer park. Then, in 1854, a stopping
order was granted by his friends in parliament to
close the public road that ran in front of his
house. Today the Ramblers Dont Lose Your Way
website reveals a former footpath running through
the estate, identifiable on old Ordnance Survey
maps, but which has since been extinguished.
The Right to Roam campaign sent the Conservative
peer an open letter, asking him to open up his
estate to the public and, in his capacity as
access to nature minister, to open up more of
<https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/england>England
for people to walk on and have picnics and perhaps even a little ceilidh.
The campaigners had previously met the minister
to discuss their ideas to open up at least
publicly funded woodlands and the green belt to
walkers. They claim he said their proposals made
him feel warm and fuzzy inside.
Protesters playing instruments. Photograph: Peter Flude/The Guardian
In their letter, they tell him they now believe
this was a warm and fuzzy way to tell us we were being ignored.
They added: Access to nature is something you,
as a major landowner, have taken for granted all
your life. For the majority of England, however,
it is not a luxury but an existential necessity
they are denied every day by a system of
exclusion; a system that you can change.
They claimed they did not want to have to
trespass on his land but felt we have to,
adding: The urgent need for a greater public
relationship with nature has been repeatedly
stifled and ignored in government.
It feels absurd to use the word trespass,
said
<https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/mar/31/sam-lee-the-nightingale-singer>Sam
Lee, a musician and storyteller who held a
ceremony under the oak tree. What we are doing is our birthright.
We are here to playfully go deep into the
wisdom, the words, the melodies of this land and
experience a sense of connection. We want to feel
free of the weight of shame and of indignity of
what it is to be on somebody elses land.
The singer said Lord Benyon would be welcome to
attend his ceremony, during which he told stories
of the land and engaged the group in song.
Like everyone here he is welcome. This is not
for him. And its not in spite of him. But he is
a welcome participant, as is anybody else.
The protesters point out that, like many of the
decision-makers in parliament, Benyon owns land
so he is perhaps unlikely to act against the
interests of large private landowners.
Jon Moses, another Right to Roam campaigner,
said: Were here today to reconnect with a
culture that we lost, a popular culture of the
land that was taken away when the aristocracy
closed much of England. Over a third of the land
in England remains in the hands of the
aristocracy, mostly in private estates like this
one. And were on the land currently of the
minister for access for nature, who of course has
no public access on much of his land.
That to us indicates a system that is rigged.
Weve been trying to get
bills through
parliament, we were promised in the Agnew review,
a quantum shift in the publics relationship
with nature. That review has basically been
shelved. Its been thrown out the window, and we
suspect the reason why is because landowners like
this are the people who hold all the cards.
Richard Benyon
<https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/richard-benyon-s-speech-at-the-green-infrastructure-partnership-launch>has
argued passionately in the past for the
importance of green spaces and links, pointing
out that green infrastructure creates stronger
ecological networks, gives people better places
to live, better health and better quality of life.
He has also argued for improving access to green
space, pointing out that research shows that
people in the most disadvantaged groups in
society are the least likely to travel to access
the natural environment so there is even more
need to make sure we improve the quality of the environment where they are.
He has been contacted for comment.
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