UKH

I have been reading Nick Hayes book Trespass, https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/ukc/author_nick_hayes_on_trespass_and_the...  and it has totally altered my conception of private property.

If you think about it 2000 years ago some person with a big stick put a fence around some land, and said "get Orf" and so it started, then in 1066 William came over and took over, and his distant descendant Liz is the largest land owner in the world.

Think also about your attitude if you trespass, maybe feel in the wrong, if someone challenges you, you look at your feet, maybe get a bit sheepish, and "get Orf" the land.

Well let me tell you, its as much a myth as God and Fairies, but until more people realise it, you will still have land owners with huge tracts of land that they tell you, you cannot walk on.

Its time for change.

In reply to J1234:

You think so. Wait till people walk over your front lawn or stop for a picnic in front of your lounge window  

In reply to J1234:

so is the law a myth too?

In reply to Baz P:

LOL, thats the story put out by the land owners, they try to make you see yourself as like them, but its a myth, my Lawn is in no way comparable to an estate of umpteen thousand acres. 
Also if we had a similar system as say Sweden, land within so many meters of a house is private.

Its a myth kiddo, and your buying it, as I did for years, but once the veil is lifted from your eyes you will understand.

Next time you walk a footpath, a Right of way, do not see it as telling where you can walk, but as telling you where you cannot.

In reply to Baz P:

Thats the great myth that keeps us in our places, the false equivalence that someone intruding into your suburban garden is the same as the Kinder trespass.

The daily mail loves a good "the lefties want to take your garden" story when it comes to any questions about land reform. 

In reply to wercat:

The Land owners make the laws to support the myth, its not like this in other countries, even in Scotland its much different to  England. Its a mass delusion.

In reply to J1234:

I think they are all social constructs, not myths. They have emerged to enable societal structure to develop, through which people can prosper collectively rather than being in continual fights for the resources they need to survive. Every now and again the system breaks down and a little rebalancing is required, they will never be perfect but without them and other similar constructs it would be anarchic and chaotic.

Other examples, laws, money, good and bad, right and wrong.

In reply to Route Adjuster:

I think you will find that in England the concept of private land, at least as far as most of our countryside is concerned is the opposite of collective prosperity.

Certainly, and I think the private property myth needs a good looking at.

In reply to J1234:

Read this and weep https://visitsweden.com/what-to-do/nature-outdoors/nature/sustainable-and-r...

There is another way.

 

In reply to Baz P:

Frankly,  a poor argument  and one should know that, in relation to such large estates as are common in the UK. 

I heard that from a farmer as I crossed his land on a right of way.

SteveX's revelation is common one: to argue otherwise is to deny history. 

You know, after telling the farmer I was on a right of way I mentioned I dont have a front garden and, you know, strangers walk passed below my windows every day.

In reply to J1234:

Doesn't everything belong to the Crown and landowners are just temporary custodians? Real Estate is in fact Royal Estate. 

In reply to Route Adjuster:

What about all the enclosure acts? The opposite of collective prosperity. 

Not been rebalanced yet

In reply to J1234:

That language has the hallmarks of zealotry, which is rarely a sign of someone open to discussion and nuance. I would imagine that a lot of people in these parts would broadly be supportive of more liberal access laws in England, but I might suggest that a more moderate, considered, less evangelical tone could well head off an amount of skepticism and hostility

In reply to J1234:

It's where the line is drawn and what balance is set to make it work. I was over at Gardoms Edge a few weeks back before we got locked down again and I noticed a load of signs blocking the route over to Birchen. I was told that walkers were leaving the gates open and sheep were getting on to the road so where in the past the farmer had turned a blind eye to trespass, now they have had to stop it. Should I be able to walk over a field of crops?

I totally agree that this idea of large scale, private land in some cases needs to be altered and especially so with our waterways which is a scandal!

In reply to Baz P:

People do this outside my home all the time. Doesn't really bother me, to be honest; if anything I feel privileged to live somewhere nice enough that people want to picnic there, in front of my lounge window.

I can't see anyone wanting to picnic in the average urban front garden, so that's not even a consideration for most of those without ownership of acres of land.

In reply to J1234:

It’s all nice and cozy when everybody plays nicely and avoids livestock and doesn’t trample crops but think lockdown has shown what happens if people just go wherever they fancy in large numbers. 
 

What happens when you get a load of people setting up camp on your land and building huts, dumping their rubbish and claiming it as their own? 
 

What happens when people start parking in your fields? 
 

The laws of trespass are quite good. You can walk across someone’s property until they ask you to leave. Most people are fairly receptive to that process. 

In reply to DancingOnRock:

The Government's manifesto stated “we will make intentional trespass a criminal offence”

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/300139

Soon, instead of 'nicely' asking you to leave, you might find yourself with a criminal record instead.  

In reply to nufkin:

I see no nuance in the current land access arrangements. One land owner has a 14 mile wall around his estate that was paid for out of slave ownership, there is no nuance about a wall.

Do not shoot the messenger, kiddo.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Most access such as in Sweden precludes crop lands.

Building huts, seriously?

Parking, I hardly think someone is going to park in the middle of a grouse moor.

Precisely, this is the problem

In reply to J1234:

I'm part way through Trespass, and do think it covers a lot of interesting ground, and has in many ways reinforced my view that we need some massive reforms in the law around access and land ownership. Matching Scotland would be a nice place to start on the access front! 

I don't agree with you that private land is a myth though - it is clearly very real, as demonstrated by the laws of the land and their enforcement. When talking about land reform I imagine you would quickly lose a lot of people if you start making broad claims like that. You might say it obviously doesn't apply to people's gardens or buildings or whatever, but if we take what you say seriously then why should someone avoid camping in your garden or going for a walk through your living room just because you live there? It's not like you own the land just because you put some pictures up on the walls that someone built on it, right? Maybe that is what you believe, but I think the majority of the general public (myself included) probably quite like the fact there is at least some private land and as a concept I think it probably does more good than harm. 

I don't know if he covers this later on in the book, but what to do / whether there is anything to be done about the loss of common land, the enclosures etc is an interesting one though and I don't know what the right answer would be. If the same family has held land since the enclosures then maybe you could argue that it should be taken off them, but what if it's been sold on to someone else? Do the descendents have to forfeit the money their ancestors gained from it? Do current landowners get compensation? If it's all now houses or arable land then what is accomplished? Does the state end up owning the land and people have to pay rent to use it (eg for farming), or would there be some other model? 

In other ways the author demonstrates some of the problems with completely unfettered access, because if I were a landowner (or in an alternate world, a member of a local community that accessed that bit of common land) I wouldn't be happy about him starting fires all over the place, or drinking and smoking joints near where for example people might like to take kids to play in the woods. Depending on your perspective that's quite antisocial behaviour.

There are a lot of people crammed into England (about 6 times the population density of Scotland, and 17 times that of Sweden), which means that any negative consequences of people abusing their rights and friction between different groups of users will be exacerbated. That's not to say access shouldn't be allowed, just that it will be a bit more complex trying to find arrangements that are suitable for the increased usage you'd expect in more densely populated areas, and I think there have to be restrictions on what is allowed, for the common good (even if philosophically you might belive that the land belongs to everyone or no one). 

In reply to olddirtydoggy:

I think the figures run that we are denied access to 93 % of the land and to 97% of the waterways.

People are not going to rush out and wreck the land, this is all part of the myth that people cannot be trusted. 

Try reading that book, its well thought out and balanced. I thought like many of the people on this thread, but honestly once you learn that Father Christmas does not exist, you cannot believe that you ever did, and this is just the same.

In reply to J1234:

For me to know  where you stand, you need to start talking numbers, not just vague notions of what is OK and what's not. 

I live in a pre war semi with a 30 m x 10 m garden. I assume that's  acceptable. 

I also own a 2 acre hay meadow which exists purely as a hobby for me.

At two acres , have I exceeded the reasonable ownership cutoff point which you are hinting at or am I still well within its limits. ?

Simplest version : where do you draw the line quantitavely  and  what area of land is it  reasonable for a person to own and consider it private property?

In reply to Tom Valentine:

Its not a limit. Really you need to read that book, its taken  386 pages to convince me of this, I hardly think, I am going to overturn your perceptions of a lifetime, backed up by 1000 years of history.

Its worth a read.

In reply to J1234:

What was the Swedish lsw you referred to?

In reply to Samuel Palmer:

Indeed. This is aimed precisely at the activities I mention. Parking up on land, setting up camp, building huts and leaving your rubbish behind. 
 

It happens around here. 
 

If the OP is specifically talking about taking a stroll across a grouse moor, I doubt very much the CPS will be wasting time or public money. And maybe the OP should be more specific. 
 

Ultimately do we want complicated laws that tell us how close we can walk to someone’s boundary or whether if someone owns more than x acres then they’re fair game for anyone to take their land? 
 

As I say, it’s all nice and cozy sitting on your sofa dreaming of a wandering across the countryside, the reality is a mess of laws.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

It's a difficult thing to discuss / debate without some idea of figures: everyone should be allowed a garden  --who would disagree with that -- but when it comes down to the nitty- gritty people are shy about using real life numbers.

In reply to AukWalk:

In a lot of cases the people who laid claim to the land have long since passed the land down and their descendants sold off parcels of land bit by bit. No one living is probably benefitting from that money anymore. 
 

I know the land my house is built on used to be an orchard owned by a family owned brewing company that no longer exists and the last of the descendants died in ten 1990s. The money is problem in the care of a cats home or a care home director. 
 

Aren’t a lot of the grouse moors owned by directors of companies? 

In reply to Tom Valentine:

If someone can access the land without compromising safety, the land's intended purpose or the landowner's privacy it should be open for access on foot. 

That's the general principle in Scotland and there is absolutely no reason it could not be sensibly applied in England and Wales.

In reply to spenser:

" compromising the landowner's privacy". 

Good luck with assessing that quantitavely.

Anyway, just done some calculations and if we split up England into portions for private ownership, every family of four would have  a couple of football pitches to  cultivate, keep pigs on or even shoot a few slow flying grouse from. Sounds reasonable to me.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

The old aristocracy own a lot of Grouse moors, Dukes of Devonshire, Norfolk, Westminster etc, but than Richard Bannister who owns Boundary Mill at Colne owns one as well, who owns England is rather opaque, but this is worth a look https://map.whoownsengland.org

In reply to Tom Valentine:

 https://visitsweden.com/what-to-do/nature-outdoors/nature/sustainable-and-r...

No one is suggesting that people will come wandering through your garden as you are having a BBQ. 

In reply to AukWalk:

See what you think when you have read the full book, its very well balanced and he develops his argument very well. It took me by surprise at time, I thought this bloke is some kind of commie, then he states that taking all the land off the Duke of Westminster is nota great idea, and holds the Crown Estates up as an exemplar in some respects.

 

In reply to Tom Valentine:

That's one of the criteria used in the Land Reform Act, there is a little bit about case law relating to it here:

https://shepwedd.com/knowledge/rights-access-vs-right-privacy

In reply to spenser:

In the book, Nick Hayes trespasses on different plots of land and weaves his story around this, but crucially everything he does would be legal in Scotland.

One of his points is that these rights have worked in Scotland.

In reply to spenser:

So, a line has been drawn and in terms of privacy it seems that 20 m clearance between the public and a residence is deemed reasonable. Unless you have read it differently?

In reply to J1234:

i doubt my garden would be an issue, but if it was substantially larger, it might be. You don't have to be a Duke to own a garden of a few acres. 

In reply to Tom Valentine:

Most foot paths link up farms and buildings and the like and pass through gardens, they are Rights of Way built up over time, and actually invade privacy, if we had a right to roam as say in Sweden we would not need Rights of Way such as our footpath network, and as such I could actually see that privacy for many in the country side could be increased.

 

In reply to Tom Valentine:

Read my post at 17.00 https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/hilltalk/god_fairies_and_private_land_all... your concern is all apart of the Myth.

Read the book, its very enjoyable, Nick explains it far better than I ever could.

In reply to J1234:

Don't know where you live but here in the Peak people abusing their access to the countryside in some way seemed like the 'theme of the summer' last year. The fire at Bamford was one of the 'sparks' so to speak, but pressure from covid travel restrictions, litter, parking and the 'wrong type of people' being in the countryside went along with that. There were definite classist dimensions to it, and a whiff of racism at times as well, definitely when it got mixed up in the discussion around BLM and lack of ethnic diversity/representation in the countryside and outdoor pursuits. These things were discussed in huge length here on UKC amongst many other venues.

I agree with someone else above - that "myth" is the wrong term for private land ownership. Like he or she said, it is a social construction, but they seemed to take something of a liberal view that this was happy equilibrium appropriate to this country. I'd suggest a more critical reading - that social constructions always reflect power. But, unless you are saying the power of the state to arrest you, fine you or imprison you is a myth, then private property isn't a myth.

I lived for a long time in Finland where the joke is their law is just Swedish law translated into Finnish. Anyway, Jokamiehenoikeus (everyman's law or right) seems basically the same as allemansrätten, the Swedish version - but if you think this is somehow means there is no private land ownership you've really misunderstood everyman's right. It's great, I could ride my mountain bike pretty much anywhere I wanted (there being a path is very helpful though I found! ) but there are lots of sensible limitations on your right to roam, and of course the land you are roaming over is owned by someone - sometimes the state, but not by any means always the state.

In reply to J1234:

Not read the book but I remember the article here and it really resonated with me a lot. That 93%, does that include private property of urban houses and commercial property or just rural countryside?

I wonder if the public today could be as radical as the Kinder trespass group or have the masses just fallen into an indifferent slumber.

In reply to J1234:

THe Catholic Church is the largest non-governmental land-owner.

In reply to MG:

Also, we have right to roam in England, access in to pretty much everything in Scotland, a dense network of footpaths.  There are a range of restrictions on what owners can do with land (planning, Environmental protection National Parks, SSSIs etc etc), tax incentives to manage it in certain ways.  Overall, I'd say the balance between access and public control, and allowing owners to manage and use the land isn't bad.   If we didn;t let people farm and manage the land on a commercial basis, who would manage it?

That said, enforcement is poor particular around some wildlife and environmental controls, and needs urgent attention, and the planning laws being proposed have major problems.

In reply to J1234:

That''s wrong.  SCotland has right to roam, but actually walking from A to B except in open country is often difficult because there aren't rights of way with associated paths.

In reply to TobyA:

Myth or Social Construct, its really the same thing, and really this is about access, not ownership.

I find it interesting that you lived in Finland, what's it like and how does it feel back in England. For people for example who have always lived in the English system its very difficult to conceive that things can be different, that is the Social construct, people caught trespassing feel in the wrong because its a social construct, but its nothing more. 
This word myth I saw used in another book a I have read recently 

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

by 

Yuval Noah Harari 

and I think it apt.

In reply to MG:

Sorry I have no experince of Scotland and it was just a suggestion that rights of way would not be needed, because you could walk anywhere. 

In reply to J1234:

Bimbling about on the fells is fine without defined footpaths - can be more of a challenge in agricultural land as the network of gates styles etc to service footpaths that you find in England need not exist.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

I have enough of a problem mowing my lawn once a week in the summer. We had an allotment it wasn’t two football pitches and we didn’t have animals but just growing potatoes and carrots was a struggle to find time. Leave it to the people who are retired. 

In reply to MG:

We fall behind England there, you can block access with a house as obviously access rights do not apply to gardens. Those lodges at the end of long drives are often serving their original purpose once again. The house block often gets in the way, especially if linking up estate roads.

A notorious example is the one at Braemore Junction.

For me the big difference is whether the land is worked. If you own a farm, fair dos that is a farm. If you own a garden, fair dos that is a garden. I shouldn't be wandering through fields of crops, or people's rose bushes. 

But if you own dozens, even hundreds of square miles of moors and woodland, then if you're going to say I can't wander around there, I'd say that's unreasonable. You're not doing anything with it, so jog on. 

(Also anything owned by the Duchy of Lancaster/Crown Estate needs turning into a national park as far as I'm concerned.)

In reply to J1234:

The idea that we have a 'dense networks of paths' in England is a joke. We have the runt left-overs from a once comprehensive network of trails. Our paths and bridleways are just what for some reason weren't appropriated by the motor car. And even then, the rights of way that made it onto the definitive maps were by the grace and favour of landowner dominated parish councils.

You could once walk safely from anywhere to everywhere, but now only a tiny fraction of our public rights of way could be considered walker friendly. At the very least there needs to be a massive creation of footpaths to replace all the miles lost to the car and motor vehicles.

In reply to J1234:

Of course private land ownership is a social construct. So is public land ownership.  So are all the ways a society operates, both through law and custom. If you're opposed to private land ownership please suggest a workable alternative, but to put an alternative system in place would cause massive social upheaval, as so much of what we do is based around land ownership and rights to use land, and wouldn't necessarily address the question of access.

Common land is a red herring, this wasn't owned in common but was simply land over which villagers had certain customary rights (and still do where common land remains).  So rather than trying to trace descendents of the original landowner you would have to trace descendents of those with commoner's rights.  If you are one of those then that might allow you to graze animals and collect firewood, but not much else.  The rights belong to specific people and there is no general public right of access (unless over a right of way or CRoW).

However Hayes isn't arguing for a change in land ownership, simply a change in access laws.   I agree a right to roam along Scottish lines would of course be welcome, but althought the Scottish access code works well for those seeking access there is still scope for conflict as this article shows:

https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/opinions/free_access_versus_conservatio...

In 60 years of walking there have been very few occasions I have come up against landowners.  On the uplands, which is what users of this forum are most interested in, we can, in practice if not in law, usually wander pretty much where we like.  I agree that access is less satisfactory for cyclists, although in addition to public rights of way there is a considerable network of permissive paths where cycling is allowed.  Paddlers also face problems, but that's an area I know little about.  The proposed new aggravated trespass law, supposedly aimed at Travellers but very widely drafted, does of course raise concerns.

In reply to J1234:

“Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”
― Aldo Leopold

In reply to J1234:

Troll of the month!  Hahaha

And speaking of trolls... one can always move to Norway to enjoy the freedom to roam.  Plenty of trolls there too.

In all seriousness though, while I do sincerely love the Scandi's right to roam (and wish there was something similar in Germany... but no matter, I'm a pro at wild camping), it just wouldn't work in most of the UK.

Firstly and most importantly, the Scandi's are generally a responsible lot outdoors and know how to behave.  The vast majority of the British are littering, fire building, plant trampling louts in this respect, and I am being polite.  Most of the members of this forum are no doubt the exception though, due to our particular hobbies.  Secondly, the land use in the UK is quite different, particularly in the south.

In reply to crayefish:

Nice work 10/10, you accuse me of being a Troll, then you post these couple of sentences which are superb example of othering, but you know that, don't you, please say you do.

In reply to Jim Lancs:

Yesterday I had a lovely walk around Rossendale and went to the highpoint to the north of Stacksteads The Hile https://www.bing.com/maps?osid=221a2753-176d-4a58-97e2-66fc0d51bead&cp=... . It was an interesting name on the map, possibly derivation of the word Hill and thats enough for me to work into a walk.
As I approached up the footpaths from the west, from Piercy the fences were definitely set to deter the people from the urban in the valley from accessing the rural uplands. The fence was a pinched in as much as possible, and barbed wire and leaning over the path, I am sure it would deter a less confident walker. The Hile itself, is barely a pimple and about 100ft of the path, but I had no legal right of access, and my wife started saying what if someone sees us. This is a classic of the English relationship with the land, just feeling guilty, that its just wrong to step off that footpath.

Once you see this attitude/ relationship, you cannot unsee it. I have no interest in going in the farmers garden, nor trampling any crops but I can see no reason why I should not be able to stand on The Hile or that English law would give anyone the right to stop me.

https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2096775  I suppose I should check if its CROW before I get too upset

In reply to crayefish:

You are the Duke of Devonshire and I claim my £5.

In reply to Andy Clarke:

Don't give the game away!  🤫

In reply to J1234:

Could I suggest that the myth is "moral Entitlement" to land based on ancient history or lineage.

In reply to Fat Bumbly2:

I'm not sure if you're talking about the same estate, but some friends decided to climb Beinn Dearg from the bunkhouse in Strathlael and made the reasonable but incorrect assumption that they'd be able to walk through the estate buildings up to Home Loch. For their mistake they had a loaded gun pointed at them and were marched back down the track. I think they ended up crashing through the forest and climbing the fence to get past.

Aside from the occasional tyrannical estate worker (and they aren't as common as you'd think from the stories, although I did listen to one estate worker rant about how much he wanted to shoot walkers while I was waiting for a friend at the car park at Strathan) the access laws in Scotland are pretty good and I wish the rest of the UK would adopt them as well. And ultimately very few people really take advantage of them; most walkers go to the same places and stick to the footpaths or estate tracks because walking over open moorland is actually quite difficult. A lot of people do treat the countryside poorly and litter and human waste is a serious issue but rarely so more than a kilometer from the nearest road; again the people who use the right to roam respect the outdoors.

In reply to J1234:

Although I understand where you are coming from and agree some land reform would (in principle - the devil is in the detail) be probably a good thing, I really think you are taking the wrong approach with this whole 'myth' thing. Land ownership is no more 'mythical' than any other form of ownership - they are both just social constructs wrapped up in laws, regulations and customs. Without those constructs all ownership is just down to what you can physically hold on to. If you believe that those law/regulations/customs are wrong then fine, go ahead and convince people that society would work better if they were changed, but resorting to some concept of 'myth' is amusing but ultimately counter-productive. You would be far better served by coming up with some considered suggestion about what would be better (and realistic) in England (which is not Scotland or Scandinavia) and discuss how to go about achieving that change.

In reply to Jim Lancs:

Interesting past observation from Bill Bryson ( as an outsider)though about how wonderful our footpath system is compared with alot of countries.

They are  often a thing of beauty in both urban and rural environments.

And when I walk around the plains of Cheshire in these lockdown times it is good to remember that most of it is a working farmland environment. Allowing us the right to roam across crops or fields full of sheep/cows is just not really a very good or practical idea. You do after all have the risk of damaging a farmers income. A harassed sheep also has £ invested in it often of very hard earned cash.

How you balance the 2 conflicts is an ongoing issue.

In reply to J1234:

I reckon Baz P is a big land owner, undercover on UKC to pretend to be a outdoors type person.

In reply to crayefish:

one country has a culture of shared use; the other has an aggressive policy of "this is not yours".

In reply to daWalt:

Good point.  Probably goes a long way to determining the level of respect to the land they are on.

In reply to tehmarks:

How about the prson who lives in a tiny flat without a garden just down the road?

Is the average urban garden more attractive if it has a hot tub or inflatable pool

 

In reply to neilh:

The tarmac surface of our roads is also much better than many countries in Asia, Africa and even the US. But they're still bloody awful to cycle on round here. I think we can aspire to  be 'better than average'.

Lord Melchett (RIP) has allowed full public access to all his 1000 acres on his Ringstead farm for many years. It's in Norfolk and really heavily used by visitors. He asked people to keep to the margins (left wide) of arable crops and provided plenty of styles and gates. He then put up welcoming, but informative notices and it's all worked well. 

In reply to crayefish:

unfortunately I have to agree with your previous summary. it's just a bit disappointing when the mentality behind it isn't really looked at in any depth.

In reply to Jim Lancs:

I am sure most of us have seen people just walking across crops and allowing dogs unleashed near animals.The issue is probably that Norfolk is not next to a major connurbation. whereas Cheshire is both Manchester and Liverpool.

The days of the country code being part of school education have I am afraid long gone.Too many people just assume you can go anywhere and screw the consequences for the working farmer.

So its a balance.

In reply to daWalt:

Scandinavia has large areas of what is effectively wilderness, whereas nearly all land in England and Wales is in economic use. Another poster said "You're not doing anything with it [moorland] so jog on!" - what does he think those white woolly things are?  Some may not approve of shooting,  but it is an important economic activity which supports around 70,000 jobs.  You may think that you're doing no harm, but the fact is that a largely urban population has little understanding of farming and how their actions may affect it (and I include myself, despite living in a village).  I have a neighbour who will always bag her dog's poo in the street but doesn't bother in the fields because there's already a lot of sheep and cow shit about.  She didn't understand that parasites found in some dog faeces can result in the abortions of cattle and death in sheep.

Many landowners therefore have good reasons for not wanting the likes of us to wander at will over their land. Hayes presents it as as rich vs poor issue, but many farmers, particularly in the hills, are far from wealthy. The Scottish Code, and Hayes' website, argue for "responsible access" but all too often it is not exercised responsibly.

In the areas of open country where it is possible to roam at will we can in practice usually do this without interference, sometimes through CRoW or because the landowners tolerate it.  The Scottish system could work here, because this is similar landscape to those parts of Scotland where the code works best. In other areas, if access is to be widened (which in principle I support) it has to be done in a balanced way.  These areas are often already covered by an effective network of footpaths and many organisations are working to extend these.  Similar areas in Scotland do experience conflicts despite the code.

Finally, while some landowners are undoubtedly aggressive (although a previous post shows that Scotland is also not immune from this), many others tolerate or even encourage use of their land by the public.

In reply to Howard J:

Worth remembering that not all Scandinavia is a forest/glacier/tundra. Once bit the bullet and had a holiday in non mountainous parts of Sweden, an area not dissimilar to eastern England. Access rights were similar to ours, plenty of no go areas but for real reasons...gardens,crops etc. A refreshing change from a country I used to visit a lot but have really gone off because of Keep Out Culture... Ireland

In reply to Howard J:

The British Association for Shooting and Conservation website only quotes a figure of 2,500 FTE jobs supported by grouse-shooting in England, Scotland and Wales. Have you got a reference for this much higher figure of 70,000?

In reply to Howard J:

The likes of us?

I do not think he particularly characterises it as Rich vs Poor, just points out that many land owners are wealthy, benefit from the tax system, and some seek not to pay into.

I think also that many poorer farmers are not land owners, they just rent it.

I think this tack that people cannot be trusted to use the land responsibly is a red herring. I would suggest that land owners can be as guilty of abusing the land as much as any walker or climber or paddler, in fact sometimes they are incentivised to abuse the land because they can make money out of it. 

In reply to Fractral:

I hope they reported having the loaded gun pointed at them. That's unjustifiable behaviour regardless of the access situation and anyone who does that should at least lose their firearms license surely?

In reply to TobyA:

Exactly. You'd have to be a pretty stupid farmer/gamekeeper to do that.

Unless, of course, Scotland isn't quite the walkers paradise it's made out to be, and the lairds have far more influence north of the border.

In reply to J1234:

Why stop at private land?

To quote from A Clockwork Orange:

"If you need a motor car, you pluck it from the trees. If you need pretty polly, you take it."

In reply to J1234:

I've not yet read it but 'Trespass' sounds like a very interesting read, and this thread has prompted some thoughts.

I am a trustee of a local charity that owns various domestic and commercial properties, together with some amenity land to which the local community have access. In fact it is in the Trust's charitable aims that these areas 'be conserved for the enjoyment of the local community' (that wording alone causes problems, but the Trust was founded in 1874, and 'enjoyment' then, was probably interpreted differently to now). This amenity land is effectively 'private' (Owned by the Trust). It is not 'Access Land' and the footpaths are not public footpaths or bridleways, but the public have access to it via the Trust's founding deeds.

The Trust manages the amenity land. We have a management plan, created in conjunction with ecologists/tree specialists etc., so that we keep it in good order for both wildlife and the user community.  Footpaths and benches are maintained, viewpoints are kept clear, dog waste bins are emptied and we have a wildlife-friendly scheme for grass cutting. This is greatly appreciated, especially during the pandemic as people have some lovely local spaces to go, exercise, walk their dogs etc.

All good so far?

The downside is that it costs money to do this, so with ownership comes responsibility. 

Over the years the Trust has also had to deal with a range of issues. For the most part, everything works as intended and everyone enjoys the open space. However, when 'enjoyment' extends to cutting down trees, building fires, camping, riding motocross bikes through ancient woodland, removing stone and rocks and even removing newly hung gates (all have happened during the 19 years that I have been a Trustee) then we have to do something.  In all of these instances, it is the local community that asked the Trust to do something, including restrict access!

So, in some instances such as I've described above, its not the owner enforcing restrictions 'top down' on a whim, but rather a 'bottom up' request from the users.

I realise this is a somewhat unusual 'model' and is on a relatively small scale, but illustrates the benefits of responsible ownership.

I look forward to reading Trespass.

N

I 

In reply to J1234:

Listen mush, if the OP comes round here trying to walk on my lawn, you will get a nasty surprise. 

In reply to squarepeg:

Here, he would get a physically distant cup of tea

In reply to Fat Bumbly2:

Could be that squarepeg does the same, just isn't very good at making tea

In reply to Andy Clarke:

http://www.shootingfacts.co.uk/pdf/The-Value-of-Shooting-2014.pdf

In reply to Howard J:

I guess the obvious explanation for the huge disparity is that the high figure refers to all forms of shooting, including clay and target, not just the birds that require the great tracts of wilderness under discussion. But I do still wonder if at least one member of the shooting party has failed to calibrate the fag packet correctly. Hitting the hip flask too soon after breakfast?

In reply to cousin nick:

Its a great book in my opinion, one that is worth reading slowly and digesting and it is semi academic in that it is referenced at the back.

Something he is keen on is lighting fires.

He does seem to see a lot of the land as "commons" that were taken away, and that this is an injustice that is ongoing.

In reply to J1234:

The Enclosures were a great injustice, but it is misleading to present them as if land in common ownership was seized by the ruling class.  It was a modernisation of mediaeval farming practices, where the villagers rented strips of land in the open fields from the lord of the manor, which they paid for by working a number of days on the lord's own land.  It was largely subsistence farming. The had some limited rights to use the "common" land, but didn't own that either.  The enclosures meant they lost both their field strips and commoner's rights where that was enclosed, and became waged labourers.  So yes, the tenants were badly treated, but the underlying land ownership remained the same. 

For many of us, we are now far more likely to own land than our ancestors ever were.

In reply to J1234:

Maybe as a positive step to resolve your issue, you should buy some land. You can get land for as little as £50-£100 an acre. Certainly people who wish to conserve rights of access like orienteers and climbers, plus a myriad of other users, should go out and buy land.

There is a land grab going on currently in the Lake District, mostly from wildlife trusts and government-subsidised changes of use. Quite frankly the results are worse than leaving the land with the previous owners in many cases. Access has not changed either.

In reply to guffers_hump:

Ok, I've been sussed. Compared to someone living in an upstairs flat I'm a big land owner.

I'll tell you of my concerns. Living in South Yorks, anything that seems remotely public get trashed by off-road motorbikes, 4 x 4's and quads. We now have a special police team chasing them. The TPT near me and several other bridleways are trashed  by the public. Please don't let them know that they can run wild around the White Peak.

Does "public access" in this mythological book include access for 4 x4's and quads, or even the disabled, or is it just for our gang of walkers? Would removing all the stiles for wheelchair access come out of my tax money?

There seems to be a lot of "if's and buts" that would need a shed-full of laws.

In reply to Howard J:

There really are two issues here, land ownership and access to land. From the perspective of Hill talk on UKC I suppose access is the issue. Land ownership is a different but interwoven issue.

I think Nick contends that at the start all land was common, until a person came a long and put a fence around it. I suppose one has to question why a fence was put around something really, in an agriculture setting which is the majority of land it was to keep animals in or out, and not to keep people out.
Then you have defensive walls to keep people safe.
Its actually sometimes worthwhile looking at these things and just asking why. Jolly good word, why, but its very odd how uncomfortable it makes many people, maybe its because they actually have never asked themselves that question, and when they do, they realise they don't know.

In reply to J1234:

Except that it's (arguably) not true. Ask your average Robin, Lion, Chimp (...) about 'common land' and they'll laugh at you. Land (and for that matter any other resource) is only 'common' when there's far more of it than anyone can use - and even then it's not really 'common' it's just that there's little conflict.

In reply to Marek:

Now thats an interesting view, I could share land with a Robin, bit not a Chimp or a Lion, but Lord Longleat will not let me on his land, well not without paying, but he gives free board and lodgings to Lions, or does he enslave them. One for a bottle of wine and some cheese that one.

In reply to J1234:

You can share with a robin because you're land use is fundamentally different so there's little conflict (and in reality the robin doesn't get a vote). With a chimp, you are too similar and hence a threat. With a lion, well you're dinner, so the lion doesn't actually mind sharing land with you at all. I'm not sure where Lord Longleat fits into that pattern.

My point was that if Nick's book is premised on the assumption that "all land was common at the start" then he's built his house on sand. You don't need to put up a fence to do a land-grab - you just kill any competitor that strays onto it. The fence is actually quite a 'humane' way of doing it!

In reply to Marek:

I think the point is that animals of an individual species are territorial.  They don't share with each other.

Nick Hayes has set up a campaign website to get people more involved in the issue. It was linked to in the original UKH article, but for anyone interested, it's worth a look...

https://www.righttoroam.org.uk/

In reply to Takein:

Although I'm pretty sympathetic with his objectives, I was disappointed to see a couple of things:

(a) Comparing England with Scotland and Scandinavia is a bit disingenuous - there's an order of magnitude difference in population density and that cannot be ignored. It the reason (or part of it) why the access restriction exist in England in the first place. If Nick wants to show us an example of 'how it's done' then show us somewhere comparable to England in terms of density and history. Is there such a place? I don't know. I certainly can't think of one at the moment.

(a) There's an old adage that 'with rights come responsibilities'. One sad aspect of the covid summer lockdowns has been to see what happens when a bunch of people suddenly 'discover' the outdoors: Rubbish and litter, dogs running wild (off-lead) on moorland (despite explicit signs requesting they be kept on lead), BBQs and open fires, large groups on mountain bikes trashing areas of forest & moorland that can't take the traffic (in these conditions). The campaign makes mention of the Countryside Code and education, but I think the problem is far deeper than that. It's not ignorance of the code that's the problem, it's complete disregard of any voluntary restraints on their behaviour. Until we figure out how to address that, I fear any increased access is likely to lead to increased conflict and environmental damage.

Nick's current campaign is a reasonable (with proviso (a) above) half-of-a-campaign. Sadly the other (harder) half is missing.

In reply to Marek:

Sorry if you already have said you have, but if not, how about reading Nicks book. I am not really sure what your concern is, IME most people are OK, yes there are a few Gits in the world, but they should not deter us for seeking something better.

You do seem interested and I would suggest you would find the book interesting, and at the end if you still disagree, well fair enough.

In reply to J1234:

No I haven't read Nick's book, just what you wrote about it. But given that it seems to be predicated on some false assumptions (or so it seems), I can't get too enthusiastic about it. Perhaps I will.

As for "most people are OK...", yes that's true but it doesn't alter the fact the the small minority that are not can make the idea of opening up more land for open access a bad idea. Most people are OK, but I still don't leave my front door open at night. We should be seeking "something better" as you say, but that must include a better sense of responsibility in parallel with better access. The latter without the former is just a recipe for more conflict and damage. Perhaps I'm just feeling a depressed after seeing what happened in my neck of the woods this summer and winter, together with the somewhat hopeless sense of not knowing what can be done about it. Either way I'll be keeping my door locked tonight.

In reply to J1234:

I more or less agree with your overall point, but I think your account is also a kind of myth: it's all about someone with a big stick forcing people off the land, somewhere before time began. The problem with this is that it actually normalises it. And, from this perspective, the economy and law of property starts to look "civilized"...

If you look at the drystone walls around valleys like Wasdale, you'll see something different. There are these enormously thick walls around the valley bottom. Those were originally built by people who lived there and farmed the land in common. The community cleared the land and protected it at the same time. It was land held in common, worked in common and benefitted from as a community (albeit, not necessarily equally - let's not fall into some pastoral romance of precapitalist England).

What forced them off was not just various monarchs bribing people with money to fight for them with dubious titles to tracts of land, but the emergence of capitalism. Capitalist labour relations rely upon the creation of a workforce that cannot reproduce itself except by entering into capitalist labour relations (i.e. the proletariat selling their labour). For this reason, the emergence of capitalism goes hand in hand with enclosure - with the destruction of the commons and the means by which people subsisted outside of capitalist labour relations.

At the same time, many of those vast tracts of land - e.g. grouse moors - emerge out of slavery rather than capitalist social relations, when certain people suddenly had vast amounts of money from slave plantations and decided to find a way of simultaneously investing this money and buying themselves social status and acceptability. This led to a new wave of disenfranchising people (in the UK) of their access and rights to land, often to construct pompous manors and destructive grouse moors. The owners of these moors are still disenfranchising us today, taking public money in the form of subsidies - ostensibly for conservation, but really just in a desperate attempt by public bodies to bribe land owners into not completely trashing our land.

This is just a rough sketch based on partial knowledge, but when you start to look at history from this lens, you see the extent to which so much of British culture, society and history is built on dispossession.

In reply to anyone who lives in the more densely populated bits of lowland Scotland:

How do your access laws work there in practice? Do walkers just not bother trying to fight through crops in summer? Do MTBers just not bother chucking their bikes over endless fences? Or is there a significant number of Scottish farmers in such areas who have real problems with your more liberal access situation?

In reply to C Witter:

History is very like photography: Depending on what lens you choose, you can tell a completely different story. What you focus on, what you allow into the field of view, what you exclude. Which one is represents 'truth'? Does it matter? Probably not - as long as you don't claim that it is *the* truth.

PS: I'm not saying you're wrong, it was just an observation.

In reply to Marek:

Actually, I don't agree that it's all relative and I think the histories we decide to tell do matter very much. First, because I do believe in truth - having been forced to witness obnoxious untruth too frequently. Second, because we do not exist in a neutral void in which everyone is equal and nothing is at stake, and the histories we tell are not simply "different but equal perspectives" but represent very different interests.

I was thinking about how to flesh out my primliminary sketch above in relation to our current times. I was thinking about how the Conservative Party used home ownership as a method of class struggle, expanding the propertied class even as it attacked workers' power and working conditions. And I was thinking about the fallout from this - from ideologically welding people to a neoliberal status quo rigged against their interests, to the 2008 financial crisis, to generational wealth inequality and a protracted housing crisis. I was thinking about how today the Tories are using quantitative easing to prop up asset price inflation, even as wages and employment stagnate, creating a spiral of social inequality and facilitating an upward redistribution of wealth. I was thinking about how accepting we have become of giving large amounts of public money to people with property, in the hope that this will stimulate the economy or save us from a pandemic - money which is then invested straight back into assets and benefits no one. These struggles over property (particuarly land) are very much active, and ordinary people are losing and losing without even realising it. A good portion of them think they're benefitting because their house price is going up, despite the fact that they need their house to live in so it's moot, and their debt-saddled 30-year-old children are still renting...

I think we do somehow need to give histories adequate to explaining how and why things got the way they are and how they needn't be this way. And counter to what someone said above, the issue of access is trivial compared to the bigger issue of ownership. Unfortunately, you will never see organisations involved in conservation (e.g. RSPB) or access (e.g. Ramblers, BMC) tackling this - because of course they don't want to enter into a political battle with landowners!

In reply to Marek:

I would suggest that looking through a lens more than two generations back is both blurry in the extreme and unhelpful.  All it does is entrench black and white opinions and stops us focusing on what should be done now.  It's like black lives and slavery.  Get the debate on historical slavery and you get two entrenched parties and no help at all to people alive and suffering today.

Same with land ownership.  Harking back to Plantaganate practices does not help the debate on how to improve access to land for all (I assume this is SteveXs objective,  but unfortunately the arguments are mired in attacks on land ownership).  Let's start trying to debate the future from where we are now - not from where you think we might have been 1000 years ago.

In reply to C Witter:

..

An  important thing you mention there is that they cleared the land, those wall I always assumed are as much about clearing the land as dividing it. I have no idea about who controlled the land at Wasdale, it is on the margins nowadays but back in Viking times I wonder if it was part of a highway to Ireland. Was it controlled by the Monasteries possibly. I find it interesting that you state that it was held in common.

Yes, this is the kind of thing I am alluding to in my thread in The Pub about Internet platforms and companies enclosing parts of the web.

Yes the Nouveau riche money from Slavery has had an impact on Grouse moors, and their use of this new found money to leverage power, Richard Drax MP being a notable example, but an awful lot of land is still controlled by aristocratic land owners.

I assume you know that much of the land in and around the Lake District is controlled by a few large estates, Dalemain and Lowther to name two.

I do find these discussions fascinating, however in this thread the main issue is our ability to roam the land, and that people need to understand there are other ways, and that the system we have was created, its not a natural phenomena .
What I do find depressing in this thread is the repeated comments that people cannot be trusted to use the land, that somehow they are the problem.

In reply to J1234:

Yes, indeed. It's deeply connected to that same mistaken idea that, although things aren't perfect, they are more or less as good as they could be, and any alternative would likely be worse. English parochialism and a sycophantic relation to those in power, amplified and reinforced by our media and culture, who can watch 100,000 die through sheer negligence and shrug, "well, who could have done better? Now... what do you think of Bridgerton? Glorious costumes, no?"

In reply to C Witter:

I think this is the bit I have a problem with. Too much of the history narrative today is based on "what story do I want to tell" and then selecting the history to support it.

Agreed. I wasn't meaning to suggest that all perspectives are equal. More that different perspective don't matter as long as you don't claim that they represent 'truth' - i.e., I have no problem with historical fiction as long as it stays fiction. Once you claim that a certain perspective somehow represents 'truth', then I expect you to be extremely rigorous about how you collate and analyse the historical data (in particular avoiding confirmation bias) to support that perspective. 

I guess I'll differ here. Personally I care very little about the fact that someone has a bit of paper which says that they 'own' some land as long as it's well managed and people have access to it. Unless you're into history or politics, ownership means very little if you have limited control of that resource.

In reply to J1234:

Some misrepresentation here. What is typically said is "... that SOME people cannot be trusted to use the land, that somehow they are PART OF the problem".

Do you lock your front door at night?

To get back to the thread though, I think what would be far more useful than agonising about how we got here, would be to get some concrete suggestions about what to practically do NOW and in the FUTURE to make the situation better. The past is immutable (whatever historians think), the future is not. Part of that of course involves having a vision of what a better future would look like, but without a practical and realistic way of getting there it will remain a hypothetical future.

In reply to J1234:

Sadly, if you talk to people who keep animals or are engaged in conservation work on the fringes of urban areas, people are very much the problem.

In terms of access, you just need to look at the increase in rubbish, vandalism and anti social behavior in 'tourist' areas when the lockdown was eased earlier this year.

Even though it's a minority, for a population of nearly 70 million there must be at least 5 million who just don't care about leaving shit and rubbish everywhere, or can't be bothered to control their dogs. Plus at least half a million who will deliberately destroy the environment and harm stock and wildlife given the chance.

I do wonder what the author of the book in question would think about lighting his little fire in a wood full of turds, broken bottles and nitrous oxide canisters?

In reply to C Witter:

Again, some misrepresentation here: Nobody - certainly not me - has said "... they are more or less as good as they could be ...". What has been suggested is that a simplistic opening up of access risks causing more problems than it solves and that it is incumbent on those making those proposals to mitigate those risks rather than ignore them.

In reply to Ridge:

I would suspect that much of this issue is at the interface, as you say on the fringes or near to access points, though I have come across litter in the middle of the Great Moss.

I doubt the problem would be made worse by better access.

IIRC he does mention NOX cannisters in there somewhere. I doubt he would like it, and TBH I am not really sure of your point.

If you want to see a real mess, look at Wall End Farm in Langdale, or nearer to you, awhile ago I walked through a farm yard at the foot of Wast Water, it was almost amusing, you would see a Hammer and a few nails, all gone rusty and abandoned, then a bit farther on a Spanner just abandoned, it was as if the farmer had some affliction where they could do a job, but would just abandon the tools, most odd. Anyway, quite often when I walk around some landowner leave the place in a right old state.

In reply to J1234:

There would be a fair bit of land erosion though if people didn't stick to the paths. I prefer to see it as walking on a designated "trashable" (as in erosion is inevitable and can be repaired, not dropping litter) path to preserve the beauty of the surrounding area. A footpath through a field prevents the crops being trampled. You've only to look at the state of the fields below Almscliff when the ground is sodden to get an idea of the damage that can be done.

So, there you go, kiddo.

In reply to Marek:

Population density is a red herring. No different to Urban England in the central belt but we manage freedom of movement here too. 

In reply to J1234:

Maybe in the past when there were fewer people in general, less ease of transport, and fewer untrustworthy people around then the risks of leaving your property unlocked, unfenced and unguarded wasn’t a problem. 
 

I suspect it’s more about your attitude that it’s ‘unfair’ that some people own a lot of land and you don’t. 
 

As has been said, it’s a lovely idea that a few people can roam the land wherever they fancy. But another when it comes to practicalities. 
 

During lockdown I was stopped by a farmer for running along a right of way between two fields. Actually the right of way went diagonally across both fields but there was no path so I was skirting around the edges. There was no path (dashed or dotted black line) marked on the OS Map just the green dash right of way. 
 

He did explain to me that he could have been spraying the crops recently putting both me and my dog at risk. Which I took on board but wondered later if he wore a full hazmat suit while spraying. 
 

The two finger posts at each end of the right of way had been broken down and hidden in the ditches. 
 

The question really is how do you frame a law that allows one or two people to carefully and quietly walk across some land that’s opened by someone but stops thousands of people become a nuisance and at what point do you allow the general public to wander around dangerous areas when you’re responsible for the upkeep. Slurry pits and dangerous animals are two things that springs to mind. Because you have to account for the lowest common denominator when it comes to dealing with the public. 

In reply to Sam Beaton:

I expect most problems urban fringe farmers have here are no different to elsewhere.... criminal activity. The bad guys just do it... they don’t need access rights.

I find the idea of severe loss of freedom simply because there are criminals out there worrying. Communal punishment.

I spend a lot of time doing lowland stuff that is suppressed in England. However it’s not a free for alll, arable summits need visiting in the stubble season, movement is restricted by fewer paths and tracks but it is really enjoyable planning routes and exploring to find the connections.

I am finding that the goml is getting more confident now and vigilance is required. Silly bike v Walker spats are very rare, good news if you use a bike as a mobility aid. 

In reply to Fat Bumbly2:

 

oh dear. That’s a bit extreme. 

In reply to Fat Bumbly2:

Perhaps, but then why are all the paragons of open access low population density countries?

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Exactly how I feel when I cross the border.  So much of what I do here, becomes edgy. I don't walk well, it hurts so the idea of only being able to use a sparse network of magic paths is a bit of a downer.

In reply to Marek:

The worst country I know is Ireland which like Scotland is a low density country with a super dense bit.  Access battles there seem to fueled by an us and them tension between the rural hinterland and Dublin.  Likewise in England, where fear and loathing of the "townie" was instilled by the community at an early age.   Scotland is a bit of an outlier, the law has developed from traditions. The paragons may share something else, a certain heritage.

A high density relatively free nation is Denmark - again cultural links with other "paragons"

In reply to Fat Bumbly2:

Don’t learn to drive. That’ll blow your brain. 

In reply to DancingOnRock:

I did learn, at 34. Got quite a lot done without a car but it was so much easier back then to run a bike/train model backed up by hitching. Nowadays I think I would want to blow my brain 

Remember the CLA running a campaign to close footpaths in 1984. They claimed that nobody used the network for what they said was its intended purpose, ie transport.  Was ready to be a witness to that falsehood. I needed the paths to get to shops, giro cashing, railway station etc. and gave a few routes a fair bit of traffic. 

In reply to Fat Bumbly2:

Interesting. Do you know what there 'open access land' situation is like? I tend to think of Denmark as 'Copenhagen and a load of villages and fields'. Probably very unfair!

In reply to J1234:

Flaming hell, its going the wrong way, have you seen the BMC newsletter, https://www.thebmc.co.uk/law-of-trespass-could-change

This is terrible.

In reply to J1234:

That's been in the offing for ages. A lot depends on how it's written and applied.

The Govt claim it only refers to very specific aspects of 'trespass with intention to reside'. If that's true then unless you happen to have your very expensive caravan paid for from the savings of pensioners charged thousands for having some tarmac slapped on their drive, plus a couple of transits loaded with stolen metal and dogs, with you when you take a walk in the countryside then you're not likely to be affected.

In reply to Ridge:

Quite. I can’t see the police blue lighting to every farmer complaining about a lost walker. 
 

And remember trespass isn’t trespass until you are asked to leave and refuse to do so. Wandering across a field is not trespass.  

In reply to Ridge:

Sorry but this a classic case of picking a group to alienate so that a piece of legislation can be put through. 
If the issue is travelling people, then existing Tax, Road Tax, trading standards laws should be enforced, rather than a new law be put on the books chipping away at our freedoms. 

In reply to J1234:

How exactly does not having road tax help you evict people from your land? 

In reply to DancingOnRock:

If you have crushed their car on the way there, they would not get the caravan there in the first place.

In reply to J1234:

And if they didn’t come by car, don’t own a car and are just squatting on your property? 

In reply to DancingOnRock:

If your going to Troll, try and dream up semi realistic situations, thats very weak. Any way this is not down the pub, its hill talk and these are issues of concern to users of the outdoors.

My work raising this issue is done. Bye bye.

In reply to Marek:

Not in detail but I believe it is similar to Sweden. Big difference being that there is obviously far more land excluded for legitimate reasons of growing crops or by houses. They may not so liberal re camping either. Of course Skaane is similar over in Sweden and I certainly did not feel hemmed in there despite most land being closed off because of the cornfields (presumably like East Lothian’s barley the fields open up again when they are stubble). Woodland is open and I have enjoyed woodland and coastal walks on both sides of The Oeresund.

(Must learn to get Scandinavian letters on a tablet.)

In reply to J1234:

I’m not trolling.

It’s not a dreamed up situation. It’s a law bought in to criminalise squatting on property. Be that in an urban house, a village green or a field in the middle of nowhere, and quite possibly people who trespass to interfere with hunting and shooting (if you’re that interested in that side of things) 

It’s not intended to criminalise people walking who get a bit lost.  
 

You raised the point. 

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Then make the act of squatting a criminal offence, or interfering with nobs hunting, the serving of eviction notices quicker, or whatever you consider is a problem. 

But don't tolerate broad brush laws as they will inevitably be abused.

In reply to Jim Lancs:

It’s already a law. It’s just not enforceable by the police as it’s a civil law. 

In reply to DancingOnRock:

That's why they want to make it a criminal law which is a huge change.

In reply to Jim Lancs:

Currently if someone is on your property and refuses to leave. You can do absolutely nothing about it. 

In reply to Ridge:

Anti-traveller racism, pure an simple. Does it feel good?

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Simply untrue.

In reply to C Witter:

"Lived experience" is, I believe, the current term.

In reply to Ridge:

No... I believe you're confusing "lived experience" with "mainstreamed ignorance and prejudice"... It's a common mistake, unfortunately.

In reply to C Witter:

What can you do about it? Without a court ordering them to leave you cannot do anything. 
 

This is costing councils and tax payers thousands of pounds a year.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

I, for one, support your proposal to crush untaxed horses.

In reply to olddirtydoggy:

I haven't read the book but it seems to me there are two issues that need to be disentangled - land-use rights on the one hand and land ownership on the other. The sort of balance you refer to applies to land-use rights and really exhausts rational discussion on the matter. The interests of one kind of legitimate land-use (e.g. farming) needs to be balanced against those of another (e.g. outdoor recreation), just as privacy in a reasonable and limited sense needs to be balanced against public access.

The concept of land ownership, on the other hand, is problematic to the point of being virtually meaningless. Someone who buys or inherits a large area of land may be overly impressed by the idea that he "owns" it if he thinks he can block access to public rights of way across it, or automatically build on it - "It's my land, I can do what I like with it." No he can't. So what does it even mean to say "It's my land"? When Captain Cook planted a flag on the east coast of Australia and claimed the whole continent for the British Empire, what did that really mean, other than being an assertion of imperialist aggression? To the Aboriginals, the very concept of "owning" the land (which to them is sacred) was incomprehensible. But that didn't prevent them from being herded into "reservations" and denied the right to wander freely across their ancestral homeland by the brutal agents of an alien culture. Where was the legitimacy in that claim to ownership? Nowhere. It was no better than babies grabbing all the toys or baboons baring their teeth at the top of a kop. Such is the history of land "ownership". I suspect that is what the book is saying - that the legitimacy of land ownership is a myth.   

In reply to Ratfeeder:

But no more so than the ownership of any other resource: food, shelter, mates, climbing gear...

There's nothing fundamentally special about 'land'.

I suppose - being pedantic - you also have to look at what 'legitimate' means and there are two common usages:

(1) "Conforming to law", in which case land ownership is perfectly legitimate since the law allows it, and

(2) "Based on logical justification", which is a bit more vague but again it's hard to argue that the law is not a justification.

Of course you can argue that the law is wrong and should be change, but that's nothing to do with "legitimacy".

In reply to Marek:

I wonder what your mates think to the idea of you "owning" them? It's interesting that you think of them as a resource, like food and climbing gear.

The fundamental difference between land and artefacts like climbing gear is that the latter are produced at cost by humans. It's the cost in terms of time, labour and expense that legitimizes the concept of ownership in such cases. The producers are the original owners of the products, but in the system of trade they choose to exchange that ownership for financial compensation (including profit). The transference of ownership is thus legitimized by a compensatory transaction. But in the case of land, there's no human production process that legitimizes any original ownership; the land existed before humans inhabited it, so there is no basis for transaction. Laws are legitimate only if they are just, otherwise they're merely an abuse of power. That's why, in a democracy, unjust laws tend eventually to get changed or scrapped. 

In reply to Ratfeeder:

 

Apart from all the arguments above pointing out that the land requires maintenance. And that costs money to do and you also have a responsibility to safety of anyone on your land which requires insurance, fencing off of dangerous areas (unless you think vulnerable people should be allowed to wander round freely and injure themselves).

Mates are a resource, a soft resource that we all need. They’re not something you can buy or own but they have immense immeasurable value. You can lose them and never replace those individuals. That may not sit well with you but it’s technically all they are. 

In reply to Ratfeeder:

As I'm sure you are aware - but for the avoidance of doubt - I was referring to the way an 'alpha' stag 'owns' its herd of hind (for instance), ie., by force of antlers.

That's certainly an good (i.e., clear distinction) argument (apart from the fact you you are inventing your own meaning for 'legitimise'). Where possibly it falls down a bit though is that most 'products' ultimately require some raw materials which come from the land (or sea). So most (if not all) products can't be owned either. I suppose you could dictate a 'proportional' argument - e.g., 80% of the transfer value is not of the raw materials, but that's hard too, because if the raw materials are not tradeable, then it's hard to assign a value to them. Assuming you could though, it might work to distinguish arable land (significant value in the work that goes into it) from say moorland (not so much). But then very little land in England hasn't been worked/improved to some extent, at some time, so it's an argument that could unravel in the detail.

The bottom line for me (and yes, it's just a pragmatic opinion, not a consideration of right-or-wrong) is that 'ownership' is really a red-herring. The important issue is what rights (for example, but not only, access) legal ownership of land (or lack of) imbues on individuals in our society. Irrespective of ownership, those right are limited and constrained already - there are no 'absolute' rights - so it's is relatively easy to tweak those limitation and constraints to achieve the social equality you (and hopefully the vast majority of society) desire.

In reply to J1234:

Almost all the landscape in England and Wales is the result of human action - growing crops, planting trees, grazing animals, mining resources, erecting building to live and work in.  In order to invest time, effort and money into improving land people need some assurance that someone isn't going to come and take it off them.  Hunter-gatherer societies don't have the concept of land ownership because they don't need to own land (although they usually have a clear idea of territory, which they will defend).  When farmers started clearing and planting land the concept of ownership developed.  Originally they protected it against someone with a big stick taking it from them by befriending someone with a bigger stick, but more sophisticated societies rely on the rule of law and systems of land tenure.

Communal ownership probably only works with small communities with a shared purpose, and even then you get disagreements and disputes.  State ownership often vulnerable to corruption, so it is the people with most money and influence who get hold of the best land, just as they do under private ownership.

Both Hayes and many of the posters here seem focussed on large estates, but a system of land ownership protects occupiers at all levels, including tenants (a lease is an interest in land, and the freeholder has no right of entry unless he has reserved it in the lease).

However this is all a red herring. It is naive to think that whether under state ownership, communal ownership or other systems that the people who use and occupy the land will welcome outsiders having free access to it.  It is interference (real or perceived) with that use and occupation, more than paper owneship, which is usually the cause of conflict, and on upland grazing land where there is little risk of such interference access has often been possible without legal backing.

Whilst I would of course welcome a wider right of access along the lines of the Scottish code, I don't think open access would work very well, due to the way most of the land, in England in particular, is used.  I think there would still be scope for a lot of conflict, not only between recreational users and landowners but betwen different groups of recreational users.  A more nuanced approach, perhaps one which extended CRoW rights and made it easier to establish new footpaths (and protect existing ones), might be more suitable, and would almost certainly have a better chance of being made law.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

1. In the case of crofters in 19th cent. Scotland, they did all the land management and the hard work, but were thrown off their traditional land by it's so-called "owners" who preferred sheep. This was a systematic process called the Highland clearances. It was one of the greatest injustices in British history. A just system of land-usage does not require the concept of ownership.

2. If you go walking or climbing in Glencoe, Snowdonia, the Lake District or the Peak, who is responsible for your safety? Who's going to stop vulnerable people from wandering round freely at risk of injuring themselves? Certainly not sheep farmers, estates or the National Trust. If you break your neck falling off Three Pebble Slab, there's no one you can sue or hold responsible except yourself. There's a little crag near where I live called The Hoff. It was used frequently by locals, the military and Sedbergh School. Then some years ago it changed "ownership". The new owner put up signs saying "no climbing: risk of injury or death". The BMC entered into lengthy negotiations with the new owner, assuring her that she would not need to accept any responsibility for injury or death if she allowed climbers to use the crag, since it would be entirely at their own risk.  But she wasn't interested, because all she really wanted to do was keep people off her newly acquired land. The fact that climbing there had become custom and practice over many years carried no weight against the meaningless concept of ownership. 

On the one hand you say your mates have "immense immeasurable value" and that they are "irreplaceable"; and on the other hand you say that "technically" all they are is a resource. That sounds to me like a contradiction. A resource is replaceable.

Resource (noun). 1 an expedient or device. 2a a means available to achieve an end, fulfill a function, etc. b a stock or supply that can be drawn on. 3 a country's collective wealth or means of defence. 4 a leisure occupation. 5a a skill in devising expedients. b practical ingenuity. 6 (archaic) the possibilty of aid. [OED]

 

In reply to J1234:

Sorry, not going to read 144 posts.

I'd just say that invention of private property rights (businesses, possessions as well as land etc) have done more for the advancement of human civilisation than almost anything else.

If the local warlord can come and just take all your stuff with impunity, why bother to start a business, grow crops or anything else productive?

If the licence to your invention is worthless and all your hard work can be copied, why bother with research and innovation?

I agree inequality and vast disparities in wealth, propagated by land ownership is a generally a bad thing. But just because the Queen owns tons of land doesn't mean that a small scale farmer shouldn't be allowed to buy land and reap the benefits of cultivating it.

In reply to Howard J:

You make some good points.  Particularly the pragmatic approach on strengthening CRoW.  Then adding an incentive of some sort to establish access (stiles etc) and permissive rights of way - plus the maintainance.  

In reply to Marek:

No, I wasn't aware that that was what you meant. The stag, through its display of dominance, earns the "right" to mate with the hinds of the herd. Is that a good model for the concept of land-ownership? It's certainly an historically accurate one (metaphorically speaking), which was my point.

The word "legitimate" does have different senses, and I certainly don't mean it in the sense of "a child born of parents lawfully married" or even "lawful, proper, regular, conforming to the standard type". I mean it in the sense of "constituting right" (i.e. morally justified). [OED] I didn't invent that sense of the word. The way British settlers in Australia treated the Aboriginals was not morally justified. It involved claims to land ownership that were not legitimate in that sense. The law as it exists today regarding land ownership is really tantamount only to usage rights. You can't do anything you want with land or even buildings that you buy. What you buy are rights to certain uses and purposes. That itself puts into question the meaning of "ownership" in this context.

Exactly. That was the point I was making in my first post on this thread. A meaningful discussion on this subject can only consist in talk of usage-rights; in striking the right balances between the interests of different usages, e.g. farming and outdoor activities, privacy and public access. The concept of ownership, which in reality is reduced to usage-rights in any case, is unnecessary and unhelpful to this discussion.

In reply to Ratfeeder:

On the contrary, a just system of land-usage relies entirely on the concept of ownership. What make land unique is that many people can own it at the same time, not only the freeholder but tenants, and possibly a chain of subleases, each with their rights and obligations clearly spelled out and enforceable at law.

Most of the crofters had few rights because they occupied their land under customary rights which weren't recognised under Scots law.  Had there been a more robust system of land tenure in place then they mights have had some protection.

In reply to J1234:

I haven’t read all the posts but I’ve followed this thread on and off. I don’t have a lot to add but I had a look through my hillwalking logs from 2020 (all of which local to me in north wales) and compared to the access marked on OS maps. 
 

I walked up 169 unique hills/summits and 44 of these or 26% I had no way of reaching using public rights of way or access land. Presumably then all of these were trespass. I can add that not a single landowner challenged me and the few land owners or workers that I did encounter were not bothered by my presence. 

From my experience I’ve concluded that most landowners can’t be that bothered by a single hillwalker on their land. Or maybe I’m discreet, sensitive and fast enough that I haven’t been noticed. 

In reply to Ratfeeder:

There are specific responsibilities land owners have towards people on their land. A cliff is a pretty obvious natural hazard.

If I was working on my land and dug a big hole and left my tools scattered around and someone injured themselves on my tools or fell into the hole I would be liable if the public had access. If a trespasser did the same, I would still be liable. However, I suspect my responsibility and risk would be slightly different as I wouldn’t expect a trespasser to be on my land, and so there would be mitigating circumstances. I still however need to be insured for both eventualities  and suspect in the former case my insurance would be a bit higher.

Crofters with an agreement to stay on the land as part of their job are a completely different argument. Tenants in England would have protection and the laws that concern revenge or retaliatory eviction are also currently under review  

 

Where does it say replaceable? I said individuals can’t be replaced. By which I meant they’re unique. You can get new friends with different qualities but they won’t replace the old ones. 

In reply to Howard J:

I don't see that any of these rights and obligations, clearly spelled out and enforceable by law, rely on the concept of ownership. It's a redundant concept in the case of land. We all have rights and obligations with respect to each other, clearly spelled out and enforceable by law, but that certainly doesn't rely on the notion of ownership of anything, except in the case of theft.

So what was needed was the recognition of the customary rights of crofters under Scots law. It was precisely the law's failure to do this in favour of an unjust deference to land ownership that enabled the lairds to legally evict the crofters.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Whereas?

As you say, if the landowner creates hidden hazards then he's liable for consequent injuries to third parties whether there's public access or not. So perhaps his real responsibility is to highlight the hazard with warning signs. And that responsibility results not from his ownership of the land, but from having created the hidden hazard.   

Obviously the two cases are entirely different, but the different issues in both cases are matters of rights and responsibilities in which the concept of land ownership is either redundant or a hindrance to justice. Presumably the laws concerning revenge or retaliatory eviction in England are under review because they are unjust.  

It doesn't need to say it explicitly. A resource in all senses of the word is only a means to an end, and anything that is only a means to an end is replaceable; that's implicit. Individuals, on the other hand, are ends in themselves. That's why they're irreplaceable, and why they're not resources.

In reply to Ratfeeder:

 

I don’t have a clue what you are saying. That’s just a word salad of long words. The person in control of the land has responsibilities. Whether they own it or lease it. If no one owns or controls the land how do you know who is responsible for the upkeep?  

 

See previous answer.

More word salad. 

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Whether you agree with it or not, it's perfectly lucid and comprehensible.

In reply to deepsoup:

‘Landowner creating hidden hazards’? 

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Mineshafts, quarries, wells.  Ponds, reservoirs, timber stacks, slurry pits.  Building sites, farm yards.  Man-made hazards, not natural ones intrinsic to the land.

In reply to Ratfeeder:

That's just semantics. If you have rights to a piece of land, whether freehold or leasehold, then you have ownership of it. A lease gives you exclusive possession under English, and normally under Scottish, law, although this is time-limited and subject to more conditions. Perhaps we should be using the more technical term 'tenure'. As for theft, while land cannot be carried away, 'theft' of it can take place through unlawful occupation, which is why we need property laws to be able to establish who has lawful rights and who does not.

That was my point. It was the absence of robust land rights which made the crofters vulnerable, as they did not have a form of tenure which would have given them legal possession of their land. I entirely agree that was unjust, but fortunately property law has developed since then.  

In reply to deepsoup:

Yes. I know what they were trying to imply. 

Not all hazards are man made and not all hazards that are man made are made by the owner of the land. 
 

However, it is the responsibility of the ‘landowner’ to ensure they don’t present a danger to any visitor and it’s the ‘landowner’ who will have to compensate for injury and damages. 
 

E.g. I have to have insurance for my house in case a tile blows off the roof and hurts someone and they pursue me for damages. 

In reply to DancingOnRock:

Not so much 'trying to imply' as clearly stating.  Nevertheless that's the exact opposite to what you were saying at 06:43 - you were claiming not to be able to understand Ratfeeder's post at all.

"I don’t have a clue what you are saying. That’s just a word salad of long words."

In reply to deepsoup:

Indeed. It is word salad. They were trying to imply something using long words and missing chunks of reality. Your definition of word salad may be different to mine.

Irrespective. I replied to what I believed they were saying so I’m not sure why you’re choosing to derail me. I’m guessing you have nothing to add to my points? 

In reply to DancingOnRock and deepsoup:

Order! Order!

Come on guys, wouldn't the forum be so much nicer if we all added courtesies to our missives, stopped being so blunt and treated each other with respect?

In reply to J1234:

I’ve avoided contributing because I think there are some very clever people in this thread on both sides, arguing far more persuasively than I will manage and with far more depth of knowledge than I have.

My issue is this: land is a finite resource, and having shelter and a safe home should be an inviolable human right. We should all have the right to own enough land to be able to live, at a fair rate from which no one profits. Everyone needs a home, it’s that simple. Currently, our sense of land value and property value is out of all proportion to their real worth, and out of all reason against that basic right. That’s perhaps a related but separate argument, though.

Equally, estates owning vast swathes of the countryside is as a result of very deep-running history. We cling to this system in the 21st Century, and it’s a relic of feudalism. As long as damage or harm is not being caused, why should we all not have the right to roam freely on the land? I decided last year to start making a point of this (independent of the article) — it struck me one day as being ridiculous that I can’t just go and enjoy the countryside outside of narrow tracts of access land and rights of way. And so now I do so. And it never brings me into conflict with anyone because the bits of the countryside that I want to access are often not bits of the countryside that anyone cares about.

But — on some level, this is the price we pay for buying into a collective society. However wrong it is how we’ve arrived here, it is a consequence of societal collaboration. We are not nomadic tribes (though I’d love to be like so); there has to be some incentive for those providing for the rest of society. I don’t really understand why people have such a single-minded focus on owning things, but it appears to be a very common tenet of modern society and I doubt will ever go away.

What would I like to see happen? I’d like the fundamental unfairness addressed. People now should not be vastly wealthy because in the dark ages they were gifted some land. It’s insane. Access issues are superfluous against that.

In reply to DancingOnRock:

I'm going by the dictionary definition, or the Wikipedia definition if you'd like a link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_salad

'Word salad' is rambling and incomprehensible, and you did say that you found Ratfeeder's post incomprehensible.  Literally: "I don’t have a clue what you are saying."

Well originally I replied to point out that it was comprehensible, but when you apparently changed your mind and said you did understand it - that's when I should've known better than to reply again.  Everything since was a complete waste of time, soz.

On the subject of the thread I think anything I might have added has already been expressed better by others.  So nah, I'm out.

In reply to Howard J:

Having rights to a piece of land could simply mean you have the right to walk across it, or graze your sheep on it every Tuesday. Ownership implies wider powers, including the denial of public access at a whim, even where such access has traditionally been granted. "Theft" of land would imply an unlawful usurpation of ownership. There are many examples of unlawful occupation that aren't "theft" (even in that metaphorical sense), such as camping in a field without permission. The problem with trying to establish who has lawful property rights and who doesn't is that when the line of ownership is traced back through the generations to feudal times it's difficult to know who's claims to ownership are "lawful" and who's aren't. You might well be dealing in "stolen" goods.

The two points are different. My point was that it was the lawful possession of land that gave the lairds the legal right to evict the crofters. Your point is that the crofters would have been protected if they'd had legal possession of their land. Yes, they would. But in the eyes of the law at the time it wasn't their land, so how was that going to happen? They could also have been protected if the legal right of the laird to evict them had been removed. It is indeed fortunate that property law has developed since those days, but it has improved only to the extent that land "ownership" as traditionally conceived has been watered down to accommodate human rights. But even today, property law will still uphold a landowner's desire to stop people from climbing on an outcrop in a field.

In reply to tehmarks:

Good post. I completely agree with your main point.

Access issues do seem trivial in comparison with homelessness, but as you imply, they stem from the same underlying problem of social injustice driven by antiquated and dubious notions of land ownership. Having somewhere to live should be treated as a basic human right, as should access to the countryside.