Dear Roamers,
“One of the NFU’s biggest lobbying successes in recent months has been having the right to roam removed from the Labour manifesto” – Tom Bradshaw, President of the National Farmers' Union (Conservative Party Conference, 2024)
All progress meets resistance. When campaigners for women’s suffrage sought parliamentary approval at the beginning of the twentieth century, MPs made a debate about car tail lights last so long they didn’t have to bother discussing it. If you’re struggling to imagine car tail lights were a critical social issue in 1904 – you’re not the only one. The suffrage movement spent about forty years trying to dutifully work with the system until the more militant WSPU reached the end of their tether and began forcibly acquainting themselves with the glassware of Oxford Street. It took another six years of fearless campaigning, and the catalyst of a global war, just to make something we now take for granted finally happen at all.
Reading up on the access campaigns of yesteryear, whether in the 1930s, 1990s or 2000s, can leave the modern access advocate feeling trapped in a re-run of Groundhog Day. Campaigners generally suggest it might be time to… get over this whole feudalism thing? Landed dignitaries sputter about “class war” from their country estates. The National Farmers’ Union darkly declare the end of farming as we know it. Various threats are levelled at whoever happens to be in power; culminating in some fulminating about an attack on the “rural way of life” (which only ever seems to include the opinions of a miniscule percentage of rural voters).
When the government holds its nerve, the law changes. Ordinary people have a little more chance to intertwine themselves with the land. Farming goes on much as it did before. Despite the prophecies of doom from the NFU and landowner lobbyists like the CLA, the sky does not fall in. As no less than a former president of the NFU, Simon Gourlay, admitted in an interview in 1996, “I think farmers are extremely conservative when it comes to granting public access… I have had no problems. I think farmers in general greatly exaggerate the threat.”
Indeed, if opposition to access reform were just about the practicalities (livestock worrying, conservation, education etc) it would be a very different conversation. Instead it stems from entrenched ideas about property ownership and exclusivity; compounded by several centuries of belief that clearing people from the countryside is an almost sacred moral duty. Read the pamphleteers of 18th and 19th century enclosure and you’ll find some pretty hair raising stuff about how the commons and wastes were “fruitful seminaries of vice” relied upon by a “lazy, thieving sort of people”, “nurseries of idleness and insolence” which were the “very abstract of Degenerated Nature”. To claim common rights to land, of which access was the necessary by-product and long-standing customary freedom, was, according to these propagandists, essentially to declare yourself a roadblock on the path to racial evolution.
Even in the 20th century, such ideas enjoyed an impressive longevity. “If we are to save the countryside for democracy” one writer announced in 1933, as rambling gained increasing popularity among the urban working class, “we must first keep democracy out of the countryside”. Three years later Country Life complained that “the townsmen seem to have the mentality of serfs. They act as uneducated slaves might be expected to act when suddenly liberated. They have no sense of responsibility towards the countryside.”
The language is different today, but the sentiment is the same. Ordinary people are pilloried for lacking the very responsibility they’re denied by their accusers, which conveniently serves as an excuse to persist in keeping them out altogether. Even the seemingly uncontroversial idea of “leaving no trace” is invested with that taint of unbelonging; implying one should only ever be a transient passenger in the landscape, not an agent invested with the right to be responsible for the land and creatures within. Challenging that notion is why we wrote Wild Service. We prefer the idea of leaving a positive trace instead.
Thankfully, many farmers and landowners are more enlightened than the example set by their most high profile representatives. Over the past year we’ve come to work with more and more of them through our Access Friendly Farmer & Landowner Network (AFFLO), discussing the practical issues farmers might face from reform without succumbing to the misanthropy which so often seeps into the public access debate.
With their lobbying efforts so far stymying progress on access reform, the NFU and CLA might crow about another round won against the public. But they should be careful what they wish for. With widespread attention on the state of our rivers (for which agricultural pollution, more than sewage, is ultimately responsible) and yet more awful environmental statistics released every year, public sympathy for their enterprises is at an all time low. While they waste their time lobbying against us, it is clear the government is inclined to seek other trade offs instead. And it’s only a matter of time before access is back on the agenda again.
So here’s my free thought for the leaderships of the NFU and CLA. Rather than another round of doom-mongering about imaginary invasions of townies, why not seek common cause with a nature-seeking public and the environmental hopes they harbour? Perhaps then farmers and landowners might not find themselves so isolated when the Treasury’s knives are drawn, and eyes can be turned toward the iniquities of our food system instead. Those “townies” are your customers after all.
KENDAL MOUNTAIN FESTIVAL
Next week the Right to Right team hit the Kendal Mountain festival for a Friday double-act.
Jon will be leading a Know Your Rights session at Patagonia basecamp at 13.45, teaching you all the things you should know when leaving the path, and how to manage any confrontations when you do. The event is free – just show up on the day.
Then from 16.30 to 18:00 we’ll be hosting a Wild Service extravaganza in the Barrel House, with music, poetry, discussion and more. Amy, Guy, Jon and Nadia will all be there from Right to Roam, alongside some special guests. There are still some tickets so if you’re planning to be at Kendal, come along. Tickets can be purchased here.
BLUESKY
With X (formerly Twitter) ever more at the mercy of a deranged egomaniac we’ve made the decision to shutter our Right to Roam ‘X’ account and shift over to Bluesky. And it looks like we’re not the only ones!
So if you’re on Bluesky, give us a follow. We’ll be posting all the usual updates, stories, and access content from there.
We’ve also put together an initial Land Justice starter pack with relevant accounts to follow. The platform is just finding its feet and new people and organisations are joining every day, so do let us know if we’ve missed anyone.
HEARTWOOD PRINTS
Thanks to all those who picked up one of the signed Heartwood prints (and sorry about the subsequent PayPal fiasco: let us know if you’re still having any issues!). They sold quickly and we know a lot of people missed out. So we’re going to explore ways people can purchase prints and other bits to support the campaign in future. Stay tuned…
MP EMAILS
Finally, many thanks to all of you who have been writing to your MPs about the right to roam and forwarding on their responses. It has proved very helpful for our behind the scenes efforts, and we’ve now identified a good cluster of parliamentarians who are favourable to reform.
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Wishing you all a week of crunchy leaves. And whatever is the opposite of anticyclonic gloom (pro-cyclonic?)
Jon,
On behalf of the Right to Roam team.
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