The right to roam: we don't know what we're missing

Yesterday, I trespassed while walking in the Yorkshire Dales.

We were walking along a famous public footpath: the Dales Way. Stretching from Ilkley in West Yorkshire to Lake Windermere in Cumbria, the Dales Way attracts walkers, runners, DofE-ers and many more and connects them with the natural world in the stunning Yorkshire Dales and Lake District National Parks.

At the entrance to the field where we joined the walk in Burnsall there was an electric barrier and a sign giving the prices for car parking that said 'pedestrians, picnickers, etc.: £2.' We laughed and hopped around the barrier.

This wasn't our trespass. The Dales Way is a public footpath with public right of way, meaning anyone can access it for free. The sign was just (literally) a sign of things to come.

The route passes through sheep fields where the footpath is fenced in until it turns to run alongside the river Wharfe. The approach to the riverside gave us more signs: 'keep to wall and then riverbank, no access to river', 'no access to riverside'. The river is privately owned. The public footpath runs right along the riverside, so what the signs really mean is 'don't stop to eat your sandwiches', 'don't sit down', 'don't paddle your hot feet.'

Our trespass came when we turned off the Dales Way to approach the Craven Arms for lunch. Our footpath app showed two routes to the village, and we opted for the one that involved less road walking, for safety. From the riverside path there's a wide gravel track.

We turned up the track but saw a sign: 'private land, no access'. Baffled, we looked around. The track to nowhere seems only to provide access to a tiny Yorkshire Water pumping station (off the track, separately walled and gated behind some trees). It leads directly to the less popular of the two village pubs, the New Inn, so we reasoned there must be no problem with walking along the track (what pub wouldn't want a direct path from the Dales Way to their business?).

We walked the 300 m from the Dales Way to the public road at the top of the track and as we were hopping over the gate, the smooth top of the wooden post indicating we were two of many who had done the same, a man standing by the pub approached and barked "do you know you're on private land?"

I glanced back at the short track we'd walked up, clueless as to why anyone would mind that we'd walked such a short distance that traversed no crops, private residences or anything else.

Jack looked the man in the face and said "yes" and the stranger walked off.

The experience got me thinking not only about the ridiculousness of us being excluded from 92% of land and 97% of waterways in England, but of how this exclusion disproportionately affects women and other people who feel less safe in situations where there could be confrontation.

Even though I knew the short walk up a track couldn't possibly do anybody (including animals and plants) any harm, I wouldn't have done it if I'd been by myself. I'd have retraced my steps and taken the route that I thought would expose me to danger on the 60 mph road. If I, too, was a 6'3" broad-shouldered man, I would've taken the apparently private route, but not as me.

People who feel less safe around strangers in quiet places are more likely to be negatively affected by our lack of access to land in England. The exclusion encourages and entitles people to become confrontational, which can feel scary.

According to the sign on the gate we hopped over, the track is owned or maintained by the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, a body that exists within the framework of local government and whose role is defined by Parliament to include 'promoting opportunities for the understanding and enjoyment of the special qualities of the area by the public' and 'conserving and enhancing the National Park and helping others to share in and enjoy it.'

Even if the man who confronted us is the owner of neighbouring fields or farmer of the sheep, our short walk couldn't possibly have negatively impacted him in any way. It's important to understand that people like this aren't defending a genuine interest in preventing physical interference with land.

This isn't about private residences or front gardens or places of business it's about open land that is owned by a tiny proportion of people. The way this land is used (and, in many instances, abused) affects all of us everyday. It affects our climate, our environment, our rivers, our water supply and our natural and cultural heritage. Yet we aren't even allowed to walk through it.

This man wasn't annoyed that we'd caused any harm (we hadn't), he was annoyed because we were there. The message is: this isn't your place. You don't belong here, in the outdoors. You have an historic legal right to follow a narrow footpath but you can't stray off it and don't you dare feel at home.

You'd be forgiven for thinking I'm reading too much into a minor confrontation, but this attitude of exclusion and non-belonging feeds into huge disparities in access to the outdoors and connection to nature that are crippling our ability to conserve our natural environment and mitigate the climate crisis.

If you feel an aversion to the idea that people should be able to walk across private land, I used to feel that too. The critical importance of private land ownership and associated exclusion is socialised very effectively in England. The erroneous confluence of individuals' legitimate interest in being able to exclude others from the domestic outdoor areas around their homes and estate owners' desire to exclude the public from vast tracts of the open country sees 'normal' homeowners defending the rights of the few who own the countryside based on principles that don't, or shouldn't, apply in such a context.

The thing about the right to roam is that you don't know what you're missing. Until you do.

I now live near open access land, and it's opened my eyes to how connected to nature we could be if only we could access it.

The nearest wide open spaces to me growing up were in the Peak District, in areas that aren't open access. The only parts of the land we could see were those visible from public footpaths of limited availability. It was great to be outdoors, but it still felt like we weren't welcome: there were few alternative public routes for each walk and the footpaths were peppered with signs telling us we can't sit for a picnic or follow a track to look at a view, reminding us to keep out and stay away.

Living near open access land feels completely different. Much of the land is privately owned, and some livestock are kept there, and yet it feels friendly, accessible, and ours. The community's. We don't own it all or control it or profit from it but at least we can access it, see it, feel it.

If you're lucky enough to live in the countryside but in an area that isn't open access you can create a few loops of your local area using the footpaths available to you. But here, there are hundreds of paths to explore without fear of confrontation or exclusion. I can sit under a tree and read my book, eat my sandwiches on a rocky outcrop, connect with rock art that our ancestors made here thousands of years ago.

Living here also confirmed that open access doesn't mean degradation. People who live near busy beauty spots worry that open access would mean damage everywhere: people walking off the paths, dropping litter, starting fires. But the crowds you see at the likes of Dovedale and Mam Tor are in large part because people have few other places to go.

No right to roam over 92% of the land means all of us who want to spend time outdoors are concentrated in a tiny percentage of the space available, which necessarily results in the negative effects of the few people who disrespect these areas being multiplied, leading to the impression that all visitors behave in this way. There's also an argument that increased access improves connection to the natural environment and therefore more people would care for it; increased access means increased guardianship.

The open access land here is mostly in good health. There's hardly any litter, camp fires are thankfully rare, and visitors largely treat the land with great respect. The worst parts of the land, from the point of view of ecosystem health, biodiversity and carbon storage, are the parts that are still controlled by private landowners for grouse shooting. At least we're free to walk through the blackened, burnt heather and see the dried out peat with our own eyes.

In a country where so much of our land is polluted, burnt, abused, exploited, over-grazed and over-fertilised by large landowners, the risk that walkers drop the odd crisp packet or camp in a copse is pale.

Moorland burned by land owners for grouse shooting

Not all land here is open access. Local drives take you past many walled estates. As Nick Hayes says in The Book of Trespass: 'If England is full, it is full of space. And the walls that hide it.'

It's impossible for us to fully connect with our country when we can only access 8% of it. Even that figure over-states our access, because actually accessing that 8% would have to take the form of accessing isolated areas across the country, so within your local area and surrounding region you're likely to have access to an even tinier percentage.

There aren't any conservation reasons for excluding the public from 92% of England. This argument against open access is deliberate misdirection by landowners. Agricultural management and climate change are the biggest drivers of biodiversity decline in the UK. It's the way the land is managed that is causing the crisis we face, not whether a walker is allowed to access it. Indeed, the damage to our countryside has been possible, in part, because people are excluded and therefore disconnected from it.

In places with a general right to roam, like Scotland, the relatively limited impact of footfall or disrespectful practices are managed by codes of conduct, public education and mitigation measures in especially sensitive habitats.

There are other political reasons to support the right to roam, too. The agricultural sector, which takes up around 70% of our land, as well as being one of the key drivers of climate change and ecological collapse, is one of our most heavily subsidised sectors. In 2021/22, £2.3 billion of public money was spent on subsidising farming in England, most of it supporting land that the taxpaying public is excluded from.

The historical and social background to land ownership and exclusion can't be ignored, either. It's a story too long for this post, but let's consider the pub we were visiting when we trespassed: the Craven Arms in Appletreewick. William Craven was born in the village in the 16th century and made his fortune in London; he was Lord Mayor of London from 1610-1611. Over his life he was given land grants and accumulated wealth. He built several public buildings near his home village but also owned and controlled vast tracts of land which he passed to his son, also called William, who was one of the richest men in 17th century England. The ownership of huge areas of the country by a small group of people (mostly men) has a long history intertwined with the stark inequalities in our country's history, but it needn't mean that the public continue to be excluded from the land today.

Still not convinced? Read my review of The Book of Trespass and Who Owns England? and then read the books. Take out an OS map of your local or favourite outdoor area and look - really look - at how much of it you're allowed to access, then imagine being able to respectfully access all of the non-residential areas. Better yet, stay somewhere near to open access land for a bit and get a taste of what it's like; I'm sure you'll be converted.