Living some distance from any substantial areas of Access Land, I'm reliant upon ROW to enjoy a decent walk away from roads, albeit I will struggle to do this even then without some road walking.
Access Scottish style would be great but I just don't see that happening in England. Farming and the landscape is significantly different in southern England in particular, and I haven't detected any real political or recreational will being displayed to ever make the Scottish style of access happen in England. So I suspect we are stuck with what we have.
There I think lies the problem BWW makes. When I walk I am often frustrated by the absence of a ROW, that leads to dangerous road walking, or just turning back to find a safer way. What adds to this frustration is when you see obvious routes with the usual "private" or "no right of way" signage that Suffolk landowners in particular seem to have a great liking for. Then if you really want to add to the frustration an examination of old maps shows many of these routes were previously marked as ROW.
What went wrong? I have increasingly come to the view that the creation of the definitive map was corrupted. Those in local government and particularly parish councils, often controlled by local landowners, chose to exercise their power to not record ROW post 1949.
How did they get away with it? People's life styles changed, cars took over as the primary form of local transport, and so ROW disappeared on the ground. Job done unless anyone so minded raised the issues, but I suspect all too often the same people that corrupted the map, thought to keep it corrupted.
In Suffolk many villages, usually those with big estates, didn't have a single ROW recorded until the tireless work of John Andrews who was the Ramblers local footpath officer took on the task of getting many ROW reinstated to the Definitive Map. Without his work it is difficult to see what would have happened. And the battle goes on to this day!
So why should we bother about this? For one it is part of our history, secondly it was corruption, thirdly it is our right to do so. It matters not to me if I am the only one, and it often seems that way, in my area that is bothered about these issues; I will try in my small way to protect what we have and get back what has been lost through corruption.
Am I wasting my time? Maybe to some but I believe I'm doing some good. There may come a time when it's not just me and Mrs A, and an occasional dog walker that uses many of the ROW near to me!