UKC

England and Wales have an AMAZING footpath network which IMO whips the Scottish "right to roam" system into the weeds.  Why?  For the very simple reason that when you enter a field you know you can get out the other side.  The Scottish rights are great in the Highlands and other open areas, but in farmland are totally crap.  You can enter a field and walk around it - whoopy do - but can you trek across the landscape as you can in the rest of the UK?  Nope.

In England and wales there will be an UNLOCKED gate/style, a footbridge, a sign indicating direction and a right to walk across the middle of a ploughed field, or through a field of corn or rape.  Common law has established that there is a 3ft (1m) wide strip across that field that is King's Highway.  Even the Covid Rules couldn't shut them down (despite the notices farmers put up).  The CRoW acts have only added open access to most of the key upland areas.

I really fear that well meaning but ultimately uninformed politicians will lose one of the key defining features of our English/Welsh country side; you can follow a red dotted line for miles and miles and miles in almost any direction, and if a farmer gets shirty (as has happened to me on a few occasions) you just smile politely and point to the map. You don't need to follow a national "way".  You can make up your own route.  Scotland never had anything like this, so the right to roam laws were revolutionary, but in E/W we have an amazing system already and the last thing we want is to lose the "connectedness" of our footpaths and the legal requirement for farmers and local Councils to maintain them!

If there is a right to roam then the gates/styles/signs/footbridges and a requirement for their repair on councils and farmers need to be maintained.

Yes it does. See https://scotways.com/crow (Catalogue of rights of way, not to be confused with the CROW act in England)

The Scotsways project was (is?) really great, but I seem to remember it foundered a bit.  The Scots should push for better legal protection of their ROWs.

I just don't  want us to lose ours - as could easily happen with well meaning numpties in charge.

Why would I want to walk across a field in Scotland?

In my head i really like the idea of a right to roam but on a recent family trip to Scotland I was surprised how tricky it was to pick out a walking route. They must exist, probably well used by locals but difficult for the occasional visitor to access. Frequently stuck when what looked like a path gave out and not wanting to cause damage to fences or walls.

I think the ideal would be the signposted paths of England and Wales but with open access off these so long as it does not cause damage or intrusion.

Yes.

Also, based on your OP, I'm about 95% sure you have a very freakish body shape and live under a bridge.

The bit of the Scottish system that's really needed in England is equal right of access to the path network for all non-motorised users.

I agree, England and Wales have plenty of paths, what I really want to get moving is the trails for Wales which seems to have stalled after a very positive start.

Foundered in what way? The project is still very much ongoing as a definitive record of rights of way, and Scotways do a huge amount of quiet work in asserting those rights of way. I'm not sure of the politics of why their record isn't publicly available, but it does exist, and Scotland does have rights of way!

To get to the other side...?

I don't think anyone is campaigning for a right to roam in England and Wales to replace the PROW network, I think people want it in some form as an addition to the PROW network

Exactly a hybrid, keep the prow, but with right to roam in woodlands and above the last wall or fence. 

Yes, of course it's a good idea. And if you think a ROW crossing English farmland means a guarantee of unlocked gates or styles or markers of any kind you obviously haven't spent much time exploring the network of footpaths you seem to think are so excellent.

I cannot walk far and in pain.  Nobody shouts at me here for riding a bike. 

Guess what - getting around East Lothian is far easier than Northumberland.  Got months of stubble to look forward to and it's accessible .  Not crap at all.  Now Herefordshire - overgrown stiles, paths closed for years on end, snotty notices everywhere including roads because they are not on a magic map......

I would never, ever live in England.

You have rights of access, which includes making that access if required - i.e. unbarring and unblocking routes.  If the locked gate is directly on the route then climb it.  you have the right.  Lets keep that right.

To get beyond.  To that hill, forest, ridge.  The English & Welsh rights of way go somewhere, an infinite somewheres in endless combination.

An unexpected benefit of marked paths on maps and organised boundary crossing points is that people are encouraged to walk the same route and wear a path.  With the current wet weather we have hay fields locally unmown and waist high, the prow a thin weaving line through tall grasses and flowers from stile to stile.

This is the elephant in the room for tallsteve's panglossian view of the current system, a great many of the routes marked on maps are in a poor state and access is often difficult.

We have that right in Scotland too but in a much wider context.

Have you actually looked at how it works here?

I like the idea of walking where others have been over the ages. Not all the time obviously but it is good to feel a commotion with the past. I love walking the network of paths spreading from village churches and imagining the same path being used hundreds of years ago.

Exactly. It's all missing styles and gates tied with barbed wire or screwed shut in many places, and ROW Officers are very few and far between.

What makes you think a right to roam would end that? There are still ROW crossing access land.

Have you been to Scotland? I can’t remember the last time I had to cross a field to get anywhere.

But oh so rarely where I want to go,

Well, I wouldn't trade the Scottish system for the one in place south of our Border.

There are also walkers in Scotland who fret about being able to complete a walk from A to B without coming to a locked gate or somesuch. They will follow RoW/paths or download/research routes from many sources. 

For many others there is the freedom just to go out and see what happens. 

If you think a pre-defined network of paths go "an infinite somewheres in endless combination" then it'll blow your mind what an open map and some imagination creates.

I notice several posts against the OP use hostile phrases such as "you seem to think"  and "panglossian".  That sort of sneering tells us a lot.  And yes, advocates of the English and Welsh rules do walk what we talk about.  A lot.

An interesting point of view. I have thought long and hard on this, and there are pros and cons to both systems.

I am lucky enough to live in a part of England, the southern edge of the Lake District, that is very well served by public footpaths, and with a few exceptions these take me pretty much anywhere that I want to go. But not all parts of England are so well served - I looked at the route of the newly created Tamara Way in Cornwall, and was shocked by how few rights of way there were in the upper part of the Tamar Valley - I am sure that there are plenty of other areas equally poorly served by the right of way network.

I have also lived in Scotland, and I do agree that their in my opinion excellent access laws do not alter the fact that walking through farmland can be a challenge - it is all very well having a right of access, but that doesn't help you much when you are faced with a deep ditch or an electric fence across your intended route. But the issue here is the dearth of established rights of way, rather than the access laws.

On balance I can see no harm coming to England's existing rights of way network through the adoption of access laws similar to those in Scotland - that way we get the best of both worlds. Nobody is proposing that the existing rights of way be compromised in any way.

The original post is absolutely panglossian and built on misconceptions of how Scottish access works or how something similar might apply in England and Wales. Throw in the shouty bold type and some negativity is to be expected.

I do however salute and agree with their enthusiasm for the path network south of the border.

And yet some still remain blind to its limitations or wish to block wider access for selfish reasons.

It's that following a Walkhighlands type fixed route mentality - cannot handle dimensions.   TBF. all that space is scary - have I picked the correct route for the day, FOMO etc.   I spend ages looking at that map and my imagination sometimes does not cope.  However, why should everyone be limited to a line because of this?  Happier in Scotland, even before the additional bike/boat freedoms are considered.

The true test would be the question - were we to adopt the English system, would we have more or less freedom of movement?  From my visits to England and Wales, I'm pretty sure I know the answer to that.

I've probably told this story on similar threads but it illustrates some of the problems with the English system.

I got an loud, shouty bollocking off a farmer for riding my bike down a wide stone track. It was so well surfaced that it was basically a road. It was however classed as footpath so I had no right to be there. The bridleway was an overgrown, unrideable mess 20m up the hill side. Over a few k the footpath and bridleway met, merged and diverged several times making it very difficult to keep track of which you were on. It was no skin off my nose to rejoin the bridleway at that point so I rode the 20m or so up the slope to the bridleway. At this point he went apoplectic because there was no right of way of any sort across that 20m of grass.

He was in the right and I was in the wrong but a system that can create this sort of conflict really needs reform.

One of the roads I used a lot as a child is now affected like this. Good road - shouty man comes after you.  Instead you have to hack through the brambles a few metres away on the other side of a barbed wire fence - even that was hard won "concession" after a long struggle.  A neighbouring bridleway is totally out of use  as intimidation reduced traffic to a level where the brambles won. 

I fear reform could lead to a Beeching style rationalisation as nearly happened in 1984.  

In reply to:

What's the situation with access officers in E/W? My limited experience in Scotland is that they do a great job. I've twice reported issues with locked gates and they were dealt with very quickly and effectively.

Access officers are an essential part of the system otherwise some landowners will restrict access and get away with it.

This is a really intriguing viewpoint that hadn't even entered my brain space. I suppose there is a risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater here and our maintained (sometimes....) rights of way need to not be 'traded' for a right to roam. 

I'm not convinced a complete Right of Responsible Access would work that well since it's management will never be funded properly. Extending CROW rights to other activities and some other landscapes - woodland/water should happen but mostly people want to walk or ride on marked, maintained paths so extending the PROW network and funding it properly would be a practical solution - agian not  a thing that's far up many party's agendas.  

Could someone explain how the right to roam in Scotland works alongside stalking and shooting rights? I find I can roam freely all over Snowdonia, the Lake District and the Brecon Beacons. On a handful of occasions I have been blocked from doing so in Scotland, either because of an angry Ranger/Ghillie type person telling me this is a shooting estate or from very high deerstalking fences which block of large areas of land (and are impossible to climb over). This happened to me recently in the Cairngorms, for example. I’ve even seen entire Highland valleys blocked at one end by some sort of controlled estate access.
 

I’ll admit I don’t fully understand the issue but I have sympathy with the OP as I’ve lived in England and Scotland (and for it’s worth, am half Scottish, half English!) but I’ve felt more blocked from roaming in parts of the Highlands. 

It's very clearly explained on the SOAC website https://www.outdooraccess-scotland.scot/

'Right to roam' is a bit of a misnomer in Scotland and I'm not aware of the term being used in the guidance or legislation. People interpret it (as you seem to be?) as meaning there is an absolute, unfettered right to go anywhere but this is not the case.

What we have is a 'right of responsibile access'. From your point of view that means you have a right to wander as long as you're not impacting negatively on the land owner going about their business. From the landowner's perspective that means they can't block access unnecessarily.

In the examples you gave, estates can't block your  access just because it is a shooting estate but they can ask you to alter your route if shooting is actually taking place. They should plan shooting so as to have the minimum effect on access. Where there are high fences there will be gates on the tracks, if vehicle gates are locked, there should be a pedestrian one. If the estate tries to limit or block access other than for necessary work you can report them to the local access officer.

The system is based on coexistence, cooperation and a reasonable approach. 

Land owner/occupiers have a duty to facilitate access around land use pursuits.

The public using access rights have a duty to take reasonable steps to avoid disruption of land use.

For Stalking, large swathes of land such as NTS, NatureScot, Forestry Scotland and JMT generally stalk around access without restriction. Many estates have acknowledged popular routes as always OK. For the rest, there are usually contact numbers to discuss with stalkers if a plan is going to clash.

I have sympathy with people that can't climb a deer fence, there are usually styles or gates around but not always.

Not sure where you've found an entire Glen blocked by controlled access. You have no access rights to drive up a glen*, but I can't think of any that you are unable to access on foot/bike under Access legislation. Perhaps you could clarify.

*in the absence of a public road.

Your OP seems to suggest it is either our current rights of way or a right to roam... But, why would a greater right to roam mean that our path network was no longer maintained?

The main advantage of a right to roam would be greater rights to access land that is not currently on a right of way, e.g. as far as I can tell it would radically change crag access. I can't see how or why it would mean paths no longer existing...

Personally, I think we need a more extensive shake up of agricultural and land management policies, where conservation practices and maintaining access are requirements of accessing subsidies. We need to stop giving lots of public money to wealthy landowners for doing nowt. And we should get rid of excess production of sheep and cattle and diversify land usage, cultivating biodiversity on our fellsides.

Access, carbon capture and biodiversity are connected for me, because they all first require that we bring an end to the idea that it is ok for weathy individuals to own vast amounts of land and then do whatever they like with it, because it's their property. Instead, land needs to be seen as an essential common resource, with landowners reconfigured as custodians of that land, whose rights to own that land will be taken away if they are not managing it well.

And more rivers where there is no ecological risk i.e. not where there are fish breeding grounds and not chalk streams .  Rivers like the Derwent in Derbyshire are perfect for paddling but there is very limited access.

I think if the scottish right to roam camping laws were implemented in much of England they would be a disaster, they are clearly struggling to work up here in some cases (look at all the retrictions in the southern highlands, or the issues with pollution due to excrement in glen etive etc). Realistically they should probably always had an exlcusion of a certain distance from the nearest public road to stop people car camping which IMO is one of the key issues that causes most the knock on problems.

Couple of things to unpick there.

1) why should Access legislation be expected to lead to a seamless positive experience across the board? A system of overbearing Land ownership and trespass legislation doesn't, so why demand perfection?

2) The problems attributed to Scottish access legislation around dirty, heavyweight roadside camping aren't problems allowed under access legislation.

It can be argued that the access legislation has emboldened bad behaviour, but it hasn't allowed it. The legal situation remains as it was last century - if a landowner wants you off their land (in situations outwith responsible access) they can ask, attempt to order, attempt to intimidate or go to court. That hasn't changed.

Of course I would welcome better access but we have to recognise that the countryside and agricultural practices in England in particular are very different from most of Scotland. Wales may be more similar.

I'm not sure the Scottish system could be applied across the board.  In England in particular there are very large areas of arable land with little or no open country, where a general right of access would mean erratic zizzag routes along the headlands to avoid crops.  Fields are often much larger than in Scotland so these zigzags could be huge. There are also large areas of enclosed grazing where general access would lead to damaged walls. I'm not sure how well the Scottish system works with this type of land, which makes up a much smaller proportion of Scotland, but I'm sure that trying to impose it would result in considerable opposition and perhaps undermine attempts to get it for areas of open country where it would be far more useful to recreational users and less problematic for farmers.

These areas tend to be fairly well covered by public footpaths although these don't always go where recreational users want to go.

So I think "right to roam" is a good idea but need perhaps a more nuanced approach than Scotland has.

Why would it mean such as you describe? Are there hordes of frustrated walkers who want to walk around fields at the moment but are prevented by the lack of access? 

It seems to me that one of the common threads in these discussions is that Scottish access rights couldn't work in England because '... but fields ...'. I do wonder how often English walkers look at the access situation in Scotland and consider how it might be adapted in England, rather than simply saying it can't translate to England because '... but fields ...'. 

Having walked for many years on both sides of the border, I am convinced the Scottish arrangements are preferable to those in England. 

Yeah better portage places. Paddlers are blamed for many things, when a flash flood from a thunderstorm will disturb everything far more than even a hundreds paddlers ever will. 

I think a phased approach would work well in England/Wales/NI. Start by including AONB's and woodland for example, and then slowly add pasture farming areas and see where that takes you.

It's interesting that I find the PROW network far more interesting and extensive and beautiful in south London (south of Croydon) than it was where I grew up in Anglesey. There's hardly any PROWs on Anglesey and to get around you spend a lot of your time walking on roads. Not fun.

From my door in South London I can entirely avoid roads (except for crossing) and stick to woodland and rolling hills for as long as I like whilst keeping the route varied. It's surprisingly good. The first few years I lives here I discounted it assuming I wasn't missing much.

I agree the Scottish arrangements are superior, but no one has explained how it works in practice in arable areas. The Access Code says to use the margins of the field to avoid growing crops.  All my walking in Scotland has been in upland areas so I haven't often encountered fields with crops. When I have it's been to cross just a couple of small fields to get to open country.

Large parts of England are covered in growing crops to the horizon.  Sometimes the fields are huge, so walking round the margins would involve long detours. However often there is a fairly good network of public footpaths so a right of access is possibly less necessary. Although the paths don't always go where you want, alternative routes are likely to leave you in the corner of a field with no way out.  I'm not sure what practical benefits a Scottish-style right of access would bring to this sort of country. 

I suppose my concern is that pushing for full access over this sort of country is likely to encounter strong resistance from landowners, which might put at risk achieving it over open country where the benefits are greater.  I suppose the counter-argument is that having the rights in place doesn't mean they will be exercised where there is no real need for them.

It would be helpful to know whether the Access Code gives rise to conflicts in arable areas in Scotland or whether it actually works smoothly.

Arable land is one of the real gains here. A lot of ground is under spring barley and is not replanted within days of harvest.  For a few months there is a huge acreage of stubble which is very good news for horse riders in particular.  Quite handy on the bike too.  

OK for much of the year it is closed off, but so what - better than being permanently shut off.  - unless lucky with a sanctioned path which happens to go in your direction and is sufficiently magic for bike travel.

Also the extensive service road network on arable farms is accessible. 

We have paths "North of the wall" ya know....

Admittedly it would be nice if a few more were marked on OS maps but we're not complete savages ;p

1) why should Access legislation be expected to lead to a seamless positive experience across the board? A system of overbearing Land ownership and trespass legislation doesn't, so why demand perfection?

Its not relating to perfection the issues here with wild camping will be far greater in England where there is much less available land unless its implemented differently.

2) The problems attributed to Scottish access legislation around dirty, heavyweight roadside camping aren't problems allowed under access legislation.

I think that statement is way too strong a definition. Wild camping as per right to roam is quite a grey area and because of this the police are not interested in trying to enforce restrictions on it unless clearly breaking the rules.

 "if a landowner wants you off their land (in situations outwith responsible access) they can ask, attempt to order, attempt to intimidate or go to court. That hasn't changed."

attmept to order? attempt to intimidate when someone has right to roam access? they will be laughed at. In england its trespass in most the country. I would say intimadating people for accessing land in a repsonsible way in scotland would likely be an offence in itself.

Bang on. I live on the Herefordshire/Wales border.  Just across the valley from my house is a fantastic new (4 years old) bridleway that follows the ridge line for about 4km. However,  despite being on the map it is totally impassable on the ground with barbed wire and brambles blocking it repeatedly.  My attempts to address this with the council have fallen on deaf ears. 

Why could we not have Right to Roam and Footpaths?

I think it would be quite difficult to get rid of public footpaths.  These are highways and can only be altered through a special procedure. I suppose it would be possible for the right to roam legislation to include a blanket abolition of all public footpaths on land where the right to roam will apply, but that could be quite difficult to define (this land wouldn't be defined on a map), and could have unintended consequences if not drafted extremely carefully. It would have to be very explicit in the draft legislation and would probably be politically very unpopular.  Since a right to roam will probably come in only under a Labour government they are less likely to listen to landowners' concerns and (I hope) more sympathetic to users.

The biggest risk comes from deliberate obstruction or neglect, and unfortunately most councils don't have the resources to enforce these.  That's probably not going to change.  Perhaps the legislation should also make it easier for walkers to take action themselves to clear obstructions, as the law stands your rights to do this are quite limited.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding responses but it is totally feasible to have right to roam AND footpaths.  Scotland didn’t destroy every made path on the coming into force of access legislation.