Author Topic: Landrage follow up - I fought the law and....  (Read 4058 times)

ninthace

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Re: Landrage follow up - I fought the law and....
« Reply #30 on: 20:21:40, 31/03/21 »
Because it has been their historical position and as the division of purpose between the 2 lobby groups they feel it is the strongest policy point to win membership support.
The previous policy advisor admitted to a weakness in their case for the above, the current as a hardline lawyer thinks they will be better to avoid any compromise.
A not very informative response.  I am sure this is not the argument they present to new members.  I would expect something from them along the of the lines of "There is a growing interest from wallers's lobby groups for more access to the counytryside.  As a landowner this is a threat to you and your property because of X, Y & Z.  The CLA will help you defend against this by doing A,B & C"

All you appear to of as offer as the CLA postion is "The land has always been ours and we don't want anyone else walking on it and of you join us then you can not want that too"

Naively, I was kind of hoping for values for X Y and Z and possibly A, B and C

Disappointing - I hoped for more  :-\
Solvitur Ambulando

barewirewalker

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Re: Landrage follow up - I fought the law and....
« Reply #31 on: 20:44:40, 31/03/21 »
All you appear to of as offer as the CLA postion is "The land has always been ours and we don't want anyone else walking on it and of you join us then you can not want that too"

That is where all the evidence points too

I have been trying to find a pathway, yet those who might help are more intent on confusing than exploring. I will not go back and try to enumerate all the avenues I have suggested that might have yielded useful examples had not the pedantic, objecting to creative thought try to pin back to an exactitude where many others have failed to find one.

I suggest that the opposite arguments to keep people out of the countryside have been born of far more woolly thinking than you are trying to pin on me.
BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

shortwalker

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Re: Landrage follow up - I fought the law and....
« Reply #32 on: 20:58:10, 31/03/21 »
My experience coincides with pauldawes in that the overriding policy is "mine all mine".  Certainly one of our local large hereditary landowners is fairly open about this.


Not sure what SW's point is.  The fact that there are underused PROWs is hardly a reason not to try to improve the access network, indeed maybe they would be more used if they had more point - which was the purpose of my OP - lets open something out, create a decent distance walk linking four urban centres and see if there is demand.


I am not against opening up more access if it has a purpose, Slow Maps as an example. My point about underused ROW's just demonstrates that not all the ROW we have are being extensively used, so there is an argument why do we need more?


A lot of you on here go on about improving access, but still don't see it. Somebody on another thread said we only have access to something like 8% of the country (England) but that is doesn't really tell us anything. a have visual access to all that I see. Allowing me to walk in a different field would still give me the same visual access.


Let your soul and spirit fly Into the mystic.

Van Morrison

shortwalker

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Re: Landrage follow up - I fought the law and....
« Reply #33 on: 22:29:21, 31/03/21 »
double post. Deleted
Let your soul and spirit fly Into the mystic.

Van Morrison

ninthace

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Re: Landrage follow up - I fought the law and....
« Reply #34 on: 22:37:05, 31/03/21 »
If what BWW says about the CLA's arguments is true, then while I would not dismiss them as a lobby group within the corridors of power, I do not see them carrying the day in the court of public opinion.  In fact their view, as expressed by BWW, would probably alienate people who would otherwise have little interest in the issue.  Public opinion counts for something as votes carry weight especially if a government has a shaky majority.  The way ahead therefore, would be to make Access more of an issue.  Perhaps the hunger of the masses to get out into the countyside post Covid could provide the evidence to trigger the debate.  All we need now is a political party to have the guts to make it part of their manifesto.  They may well get my vote, irrespective of their political hue.

As a start, if you get a canvasser for the local elections, raise to issue on the doorstep.  I cannot remember, has reform of public access in England been raised as an on-line government petition?
Solvitur Ambulando

Andies

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Re: Landrage follow up - I fought the law and....
« Reply #35 on: 11:33:27, 01/04/21 »
Unbelievable, I just spent obviously too long responding at length to Ninthace's question to BWW only to find I was timed out and lost everything   >:(

I just cannot be bothered to go through it all again now but the conclusion I was trying to get to was that there needs to be a link between the provision of access and some reward for doing so. Can we expect a landowner or farmer to actively engage in the provision of increased access or any access at all, if they only see a cost in doing so or believe that their requirement to provide this is unjust in some way? (I did detail many of these possible injustices and concerns in my lost reply!)

Landowners/farmers in areas that have walking tourism can often see an obvious benefit. They have a holiday let for example that attracts walkers, and often such areas have open access land in any event where perceived issues from access are less than that encountered in my area of rural Mid Suffolk. Here the farming is mostly arable and access is about ROW, and there are few identifiable links between access and any reward in providing it.

I think a solution would be to take a proportion of the "subsidy pot" and allocate this directly in relation to the quantity and type of access provided by a landowner. Hence the landowner with two miles of ROW gets something in return for the loss of his productive land, and the landowner with no ROW gets nothing. It would establish a direct financial link to the existence and provision of ROW, rather than the seemingly notional requirement to comply with ROW requirements in the current subsidy regime.

Consequently the landowner has a reward for providing and maintaining the ROW rather than seeing access as a cost or nuisance be that real or imagined  :-\

barewirewalker

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Re: Landrage follow up - I fought the law and....
« Reply #36 on: 11:47:52, 01/04/21 »
  All we need now is a political party to have the guts to make it part of their manifesto.  They may well get my vote, irrespective of their political hue.

Better still make it a cross-party issue  8) . 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.
BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

pdstsp

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Re: Landrage follow up - I fought the law and....
« Reply #37 on: 12:33:45, 01/04/21 »
Bad luck Andies - that has happened to me a couple of times when posting TRs - deeply frustrating.


I think your idea of a financial element to the PROWs to soften the pill may have some traction.  And I like BWW's post.  Thinking about the point of my original post on here I can see that the route I was proposing was not gong to be a money spinner - nobody is going to plan a walking trip round a wander down the Alt and linkage with the Sefton Coast path, and, therefore, there is no financial reason for a landowner to give way.  I am not sure they will even if offered what would, presumably be a relatively modest amount, but it would be interesting to see.


I think what is sad is the well of goodwill they are losing from users of the countryside.  In the past I have deliberately made a pain of myself when I have seen someone hanging around to do some fly tipping.  I would like to think I still would, but it would be with a bitter taste if I were to help protect the land of someone who didn't think I was worthy of walking across it!


I am struggling to reply to SW's point.  If you are happy with looking at the land from afar, then that is fine. Many of us are not.  I still do not understand why you choose to enter these discussions about improving access when it is not something that interests you, unless it is merely to get an argument going.

ninthace

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Re: Landrage follow up - I fought the law and....
« Reply #38 on: 12:34:58, 01/04/21 »
I think Andies' response is a sensible one.  If there is a percievable benefit then there is more likely to be a favourable reaction.

While I was out on my hike today round the moors in the middle of Devon, I thought about BWW's suggestion that the CLA base their argument on some form of "divine right" of ownershio.  It makes no sense.  A footpath across your land has no impact on the ownership of the land and, according ot BWW, no effect on the value either, so it really does not hold water.

I have more sympathy with the "privacy argument".  However most paths pass through fields well away from propoerty and many landowners do not live on the land they own.

So what it comes down to is there is nothing in it for them.  As Andies suggests. solve that and we may be on the way to the restoration of more paths.
Solvitur Ambulando

Skip

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Re: Landrage follow up - I fought the law and....
« Reply #39 on: 12:37:18, 01/04/21 »
. . .  too long responding at length to Ninthace's question to BWW only to find I was timed out and lost everything. . .

Yup it does that. Join the club.
Skip

ninthace

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Re: Landrage follow up - I fought the law and....
« Reply #40 on: 12:41:55, 01/04/21 »
Yup it does that. Join the club.
Ctrl A, ctrl C before preview saves a lot of retyping.
Solvitur Ambulando

shortwalker

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Re: Landrage follow up - I fought the law and....
« Reply #41 on: 12:50:15, 01/04/21 »

I am not against opening up more access if it has a purpose, Slow Maps as an example. My point about underused ROW's just demonstrates that not all the ROW we have are being extensively used, so there is an argument why do we need more?


A lot of you on here go on about improving access, but I still don't see it. Somebody on another thread said we only have access to something like 8% of the country (England) but that is doesn't really tell us anything. I have visual access to all that I see. Allowing me to walk in a different field would still give me the same visual access.
Let your soul and spirit fly Into the mystic.

Van Morrison

Andies

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Re: Landrage follow up - I fought the law and....
« Reply #42 on: 14:42:01, 01/04/21 »
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  8) . 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 :-\
« Last Edit: 15:03:51, 01/04/21 by Andies »

shortwalker

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Re: Landrage follow up - I fought the law and....
« Reply #43 on: 15:35:28, 01/04/21 »
The problem is who is going to decide what access is relevant/needed?


Farmer (a) already has several PROW's on his land farmer (b) doesn't have any. So who gets a subsidy?


Not all land is farming land, so what are you going to do with them.


Some farmers may even feel if I have to do x or y is it worth it. Others may feel I need as much money as I can get I will allow as much access as I can get. Yet when you look at what land he has it will be access to nowhere if his fellow farmers don't agree.


As others have alluded to, there are still a lot of tenant farmers, Farms owned by corporations etc. How do you deal with them?







Let your soul and spirit fly Into the mystic.

Van Morrison

pdstsp

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Re: Landrage follow up - I fought the law and....
« Reply #44 on: 15:39:42, 01/04/21 »
Well in relation to this thread, the Council would identify the landowners over whose land the proposed route passed, and they would be approached, presumably.  I don't know, but I think there would only be two.  Not too hard, I wouldn't have thought.

 

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