[Diggers350] Ramblers unite nr Richmond, North Yorkshire, to protest against Englands draconian right to roam laws
Tony Gosling
tony at cultureshop.org.uk
Tue Sep 26 11:22:28 BST 2023
Ramblers unite at Scots Dyke, near Richmond,
North Yorkshire, to protest against Englands draconian right to roam laws
https://tlio.org.uk/ramblers-unite-at-scots-dyke-near-richmond-north-yorkshire-to-protest-against-englands-draconian-right-to-roam-laws/
<https://tlio.org.uk/ramblers-unite-at-scots-dyke-near-richmond-north-yorkshire-to-protest-against-englands-draconian-right-to-roam-laws/>26
September 2023 |
<https://tlio.org.uk/author/tony/>Tony Gosling |
<https://tlio.org.uk/ramblers-unite-at-scots-dyke-near-richmond-north-yorkshire-to-protest-against-englands-draconian-right-to-roam-laws/#respond>Leave
a comment
join/donate: https://www.righttoroam.org.uk/
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/23/ramblers-unite-at-scots-dyke-to-protest-against-englands-draconian-right-to-roam-laws>Ramblers
unite at Scots Dyke to protest against Englands draconian right to roam laws
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/23/ramblers-unite-at-scots-dyke-to-protest-against-englands-draconian-right-to-roam-laws
English and Scottish walkers meet in mass
trespass to call for greater public access to
land in England and Wales, like the more generous laws of Scotland
Emacs!
Flag-waving activists for land reform have
expressed their demands for greater freedom to
roam in England and Wales by staging a symbolic
trespass through farmland on the Scottish border.
In a bid to highlight Scotlands far more
generous rights of access to the countryside,
around 40 campaigners tramped through boggy,
dense woodland to arrive at an earth dyke north
of Carlisle which once marked the medieval border.
They lined up on the Scots Dyke, built in 1552 to
fix the English-Scottish border in a largely
lawless district then known as the Debatable
Lands, where Jon Moses, an organiser of the
Borderlands rally, stood on the bank with one leg
in England and the other in Scotland.
My left leg is lawful; my right is unlawful, he
said, referring to the substantial differences in
right-to-roam laws on either side of the border.
That message was echoed by the activists, who
sang and danced to an ironic version of the hokey
cokey in a static congo line along the dyke.
They were met at the dyke by Scottish activists,
including Andy Wightman, a land reform expert and
former Scottish Greens MSP, and Dave Morris,
former chief executive of Ramblers Scotland. They
had legally walked there across land north of the
border owned by the Duke of Buccleuch. The
southern contingent had technically trespassed
over a farm track and private woodland to arrive
at the dyke, before staging a ceremony in a
Scottish field which was symbolically doused with
Newcastle Brown Ale and Scotch whisky.
The Borderlands event was arranged by the Right
to Roam campaign, bidding to replicate Scotlands
statutory freedom to walk, row or swim across the
vast majority of open land, farm fields, woods
and waterways in England and Wales.
Scotlands longstanding traditions of free
access, subject to restrictions to protect
private gardens and work such as forestry, were
enshrined in law by the Land Reform (Scotland)
Act 2003; the protest at Scots Dyke was intended
to mark the acts 20th anniversary.
In England and Wales, the Countryside and Rights
of Way Act 2000 is far more restrictive. It
provides strikingly limited rights which are
also starkly unequal, argues the Right to Roam campaign.
The act allows free access to only 8% of England
and Wales, chiefly along defined paths or
designated open land such as national parks. But
that leads to hugely unequal levels of access for
people to their local areas. While 72% of the
Peak District has open access, that falls to 0.6% in Kent.
Recent analysis by the New Economics Foundation
and the Ramblers shows deep social inequalities
regarding access to designated rights of way in
England and Wales; people in the richest areas
have 80% more paths, and in the whitest areas have 144% more.
Emacs!
The England and Wales act also prevents free
access to around 97% of England and Wales lakes
and rivers, unlike Scotlands legislation, which
allows kayakers, swimmers and rowers the
statutory right to use nearly all open water.
The Right to Roam campaign is pinning its hopes
on Labour following through on its recent pledges
to replicate Scotlands access laws for England
and Wales if it wins power at the next election.
Nadia Shaikh, a Right to Roam organiser, told the
protesters the Scottish legislation allowed
English activists to remind ourselves this is
absolutely possible; it is absolutely achievable.
Divisions
But there are splits in the English access
movement: the Ramblers group believes the English
act can be enhanced to include access to
watersides (but not on to the water), to
woodlands and some downlands. Englands very
large number of rights of way makes Scotlands
model unsuitable and unnecessary, and would
undermine the trust and consensus built with landowners, they argue.
In a brief ceremony at the Scots Dyke, Wightman
handed over a mocked-up land reform bill for
England and Wales modelled heavily on
Scotlands legislation to 11-year-old Shafag
Elnour, the daughter of Sudanese refugees now living in Newcastle.
I just think that we should have a right to
roam, said Elnour, carrying a small green banner
she had made with the slogan right 2 roam in her hands.
It is just stupid that all those people buy lots
and lots of land and do nothing with it.
Her father, Mohaned Ahmed, a human rights lawyer
and consultant present at the event with Elnours
two brothers and mother, said being a black
refugee added additional barriers to enjoying the English countryside.
I think it is inhuman that land is for a handful
of people, not for everyone, he said.
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