UKH

Well this all seems rather good and wholesome.  I hope it helps to move things along a bit..
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/07/trespassers-demand-righ...

We really are governed by the common people, aren't we? No wonder their policies are so empathetic...

Someone excluding public access to 12,000 acres ought to be paying fortunes in tax.

(First off, declaration of interest: I sit on both sides of the fence: I'm a walker, but I'm also a trustee of a similar - smaller - estate in East Anglia).

Englefield seems to have helpful information about access:

https://www.englefieldestate.co.uk/community/public-access

If the campaigners want Right to Roam, presumably the land in discussion would have been mapped as such under CROW in 2000.  Yes, there may be a lost footpath, but there are lost footpaths all over the country which the Ramblers are trying to bring back into mapping and recording.

I also know that the estate I am involved in has many husbandry, farming, tenant privacy, health and safety issues that mean that unfettered access to the whole estate is simply not possible, and the trustees bend over backwards to provide wider access in many ways.

How many of the protesters would happily let a group of people walk across their garden which they regarded as their private space ...

There is a big difference between a garden and an estate.

I have no idea what point you are trying to make here and the first sentence makes no sense.

Valid if obvious info.

Oh dear.

FWIW, if the bottom of my garden was so far from my house that I couldn’t see it, I wouldn’t give a toss. I’d probably facilitate access with stiles, paths, signage if necessary etc.

You could put the path underground...

http://www.forgottenrelics.co.uk/tunnels/haddon.html

😀

I wonder how farms and estates in Scotland seem to to manage? 

Oops.  You were doing really well until you came out with this ludicrous old chestnut.

Edit to add:

Actually, 65 is quite right and this makes no sense either. 

The scope of what came under CROW was very limited as you probably know.  And here's a notorious example (especially from a climber's point of view) of even a patch land that was originally designated as access land under CROW subsequently being clawed back, on the grounds that the landowners had "improved" it, in a particularly egregious example of "Get Orf Moi Laaaaand!"
https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2011/09/vixen_tor_-_access_denied-64182

Has the deadline been moved? I got it into my head the deadline had passed, but appears to be 2026.

I do worry what will happen after that date however.

I think there needs to be some sort of framework, that for land over a certain size (no idea what size) there should be a certain length of PROW if the ramblers request it. I think landowners should get to choose the route, but it's needs to be sensible in terms of connecting Point A to Point B.

It would be a hell of a thing to arbitrate however.

The 2026 date got dropped beginning of this year. Seems like they, somewhat surprisingly, looked at the massive backlog and decided to give more time.

Interestingly he recently made the decision to repeal the 2026 cut-off date for 'lost ways' which, as a major Tory landowner you might have expected him to insist upon.  The current right to roam push is a lot more radical than the lost ways process which, whilst it has the potential to uncover/restore some really useful routes , is an oddity. The ramblers have stated they don't want to restore every path and are willing to compromise balancing usefulness with intrusion etc. 

Quite so.  It's hard to get your head around how someone can regard 12000 acres as their 'garden' that it's perfectly reasonable to exclude everybody else from all the time.  It's obviously bollocks, there's a difference between the curtilage to someone's dwelling and a huge rambling estate.

I can think of quite a few examples around the bits of the Peak that I know well of public footpaths that do pass through people's gardens and sometimes really close to their houses.  (And for historical reasons it's very common for them to pass through a farmyard.) 

Some have diverted the path (legally or more unofficially) to take it slightly further from their actual house, but most haven't and it really doesn't seem to be a problem most of the time as far as I can tell.

But my garden is only 9600 acres so quite different.  Meanwhile for viewers in Scotland its.....

farming and estate management in Scotland, particularly the Highlands, is completely different from the close hedged and fenced fields of lowland England...

Believe it or not, Scotland also has hedged and fenced farm fields. I can see quite a lot from my window here in Perthshire. We still seem to manage. 

Yes I am aware of that! It's the proportions though. England is mainly fenced and hedged fields whereas Scotland is far more open moorland and mountain....

I would too. But only until I found the first bag-of-dog-shite-in-a-tree, after that: it's automated cannon, mines and heavy artillery!

I'm torn. Once triggered, I know I'd become the evil private land owner who screws the common folk, too. I think my only concrete idea is that no one person should ever simply be permitted to be a private land owner of just quite so much land! Neither me, nor the toffs extant.

I don't really see what that has to do with the general principles of access. It's almost as if walkers in England see something good about excluded from most of the country. 

It was about H&S and other facets of farming - far more machinery and livestock around in England I would suspect....I was replying to Yorshire Lad's post

12,000 acres sounds like a vast area, but it's 'only' 18.75 square miles - 4.33 x 4.33 miles.
Still quite big, but doesn't sound quite as emotively big if you describe it as 12,000 acres.

I have a share in 10 acres (in England) and that is huge to me.

In an urban area, 18.75 square miles would garner quite a lot of council tax.

Maybe he should build a small town on it then?
It's also not clear from the Guardian article of where exactly this 12,000 acres of non-public access land refers to as there does appear to be public access to some areas including permissive paths, etc.
Public access could perhaps be improved, but a lot of this sounds like having a go at the owner for whatever reason as opposed to having a genuine want for better access.
Anyway, would you really want that bunch of tree hugging weirdoes on your land? 🙄