I'm sure BWW will advise me differently if I have this wrong but I believe agricultural subsidies were post war directed at increasing food production. Hence grants for drainage of previously unproductive land, and removing hedge rows for more productive land together with efficiency of mechanized operations.
However when this resulted in over production subsidies moved to more environmentally minded options and setaside; Stewardship Schemes I think they're called.
Perhaps now we see a new need, the value of access for physical and mental health. Hence I suggest a change in subsidy structure to reward landowners for access provided to users.
Better still make it a cross-party issue . On one hand a social necessity and on the other good economic sense.
I have already been making protest steps, I don't buy Rhydd beef because of Lord Newborough's imprint on the map of both Wales and England and told a restaurant why.
I discourage the use of certain farm shops because they take advantage of the countryside, at the expense of public access.
I would not use certain businesses if they pay property rental to estates that have a bad profile on the OS map.
I tell B&B's when I think their hospitality status is impaired by their surrounding RoW network.
I even went as far as objecting to Clun's bid for Walker Friendly status because there is a hostile landowner within a mile of the town.
Not that I do much good all on my ownsome, but these are my opinions and I am quite entitled to have them.
It is not always easy to make a direct impact upon those that don't fulfill their responsibilities with regard to access. I have often referred to my own issues hereon and under the current structure of ROW the only recourse is to a Council's over stretched ROW Department to address these issues, which often results in mixed outcomes and frustration.
As you demonstrate BWW where you can take additional direct action you, if sufficiently supported by others, may make some difference to that landowner/farmer by ultimately hitting him in the pocket. However most of the landowners hereabouts have no farm shop or b&b, they sell under contract to grain cooperatives, supermarkets, British Sugar etc...they are divorced from the end consumer.
Consequently I will struggle to have any impact upon them either individually or collectively even if other access users feel similarly aggrieved by the landowners attitude towards access. Yes Mr A the local farmer sells a few potatoes and onions at the farm gate, and I would never buy from him because he's a complete access denier, a nasty violent wife beating drunk, who even his fellow landowners shun, but is he bothered; probably not.
Hence I have concluded if we want more access, and yes I do, then this will only come about by linking subsidies to access, and in so doing provide the necessary inducement to landowners and an enforceable framework going forward