DEAR ROAMERS — THE RESULTS ARE IN

Can't see this message? View in a browser   The Results Are In... Dear Roamers, A few weeks ago we launched our first supporter survey, with the aim of getting to know you better, learn more about the access issues you face, and to get your feedback on the direction of the campaign. Several thousand of you responded, so we got a great sample to learn from – as well as lots of helpful comments we’ll be taking on board. Without further ado, we’d like to share some of what we found… WHAT WE LEARNED ABOUT YOU Over 50% of you live in the countryside, either in a fully rural area (31%) or a rural town (20.9%). That wasn’t a surprise to us: but it does challenge the claims of critics that access is a ‘townie’ issue being imposed on the countryside. In reality, as our polling suggests, it’s equally (very) popular across urban and rural dwellers alike. The biggest way a ‘right to roam’ would affect your life was removing the anxiety of confrontation when accessing the outdoors (71% selected): there’s sometimes a view that the only people calling for access reform are ‘adventure bros’ – people who are already confident and experienced in the outdoors. This indicates a much more complex picture. Many of you further felt a right to roam law would help unlock new access opportunities in your area (69% selected) and protect or restore access to areas where no explicit rights currently exist (67%). Indeed, nearly half of you (45%) had lost access to an area which had previously enjoyed informal access (a growing trend we call ‘micro-enclosure’), while 60% of you experienced a lack of safe routes to walk or cycle. 40% of you had sadly had an interaction with an aggressive landowner, and most of you had encountered obstructed rights of way (78%) as well as hostile signage (76%). YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE CAMPAIGN Many of you were hugely encouraging and supportive about the efforts of the campaign over the past few years and urge us to keep going! You recognise we’re up against some major opponents, but are glad the campaign is giving expression to the desire for a different kind of countryside. You overwhelmingly agree our primary policy aim is correct (adapting the Scottish model of a default right of responsible access to land and water). Over 75% of you felt this should continue to be our focus, though many were glad we’ve been defending existing rights too. A smaller percentage of you (15%) felt we should stick with the original campaign goal of extending the Countryside and Rights of Way Act to new areas. For more context on why we decided to switch to adapting the Scottish approach, check out our full briefing here. You welcome our efforts to mitigate genuine issues with access (e.g. our work on dog policy) and our collaboration with forward thinking parts of the farming and landowner community through AFFLO. You also wanted to hear more about the behind-the-scenes political efforts (for which: see this recent newsletter with an update from Guy). You also had some useful things to say about ways we might improve:- Our process for getting involved with local groups is a tad clunky and you’d like more ways to get involved in general. We appreciate establishing local groups can be a bit DIY at the moment. There’s a reality to our capacity but we’ll be investigating ways this process can be streamlined. We should say that actions which may seem minor, like writing to your MP and forwarding us the reply, do have a significant cumulative impact. We’ve been able to build a strong pro-access caucus within parliament because of it. You want more Northern events. Our team is now spread evenly across the country with several new local groups up and running in the north of the country, so expect action on this soon (in fact, see below…) You’re split on whether we’re a bit too, well, ‘hippy’ – some of you value the more soulful emphasis on the meaning of access, some of you think it’s potentially offputting to the mainstream. We’ll be aiming our communication efforts at the mainstream this year, while still holding on to the style and spirit which motivates us. Staying focused was another theme which came through: so that’s exactly what we’ll be doing. FINANCIALS Many of you were happy to donate to the campaign but first wanted us to be clearer what donations fund. There’s a brief summary on that at the bottom here (the short answer is: team time, running costs, events). The campaign is primarily funded by small monthly donations from our supporters and runs to pretty tight margins. We do everything we can to keep unnecessary costs down (e.g. we don’t pay for offices and keep a small, lean team). We’re also not the easiest campaign for larger funders to support: so if you can help us keep going, please do! You also wanted more control over your donations – we’ve now set it up so that you’re sent an automatic link when you donate so you can control everything yourself and cancel at any time. We’ve had lots of requests to sell merchandise to raise money. It’s something we’ve thought a lot about and, while we’re loath to put more stuff into the world that might end up in landfill, we are going to experiment with a shop selling the campaign’s popular artwork. We’re making sure this is done to an environmentally high standard. More on that soon. KINDER TRESPASS Apologies to those of you who didn’t receive our recent newsletter about Kinder (there’s an issue with our mailouts we’ve hopefully now resolved). You can read that here. The key information: join us at the annual Kinder trespass swim on April 27th, which you can find out more about here. FOOD IN OUR HANDS For those in the south that weekend, do join our friends at the Landworker’s Alliance on April 26th for ‘Food In Our Hands’, a march calling for the Right to Food and systemic change to our extractive food system. The march will gather from 12pm at Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens in London (SE11 5HL). More details here. RIVER ACTION RIVER KIT The fearsome campaigners over at River Action have just released this brilliant River Kit, with advice and tools covering everything you need to start serving as a guardian of your local river. The example of grassroots river campaigners has been central to the vision we outlined in Wild Service, with connection converting to protection all across the country. It’s a fabulous, inspiring resource. Check it out! Wishing you all bluebells and blackthorn blossom, Jon, On behalf of the Right to Roam team Illustration from the chapter on 'Guardianship' in Wild Service (Credit: Nick Hayes) Take Action Visit our social accounts Check out our site   This email was sent from this site. If you no longer wish to receive this email, change your email preferences here.