Right to roam on rights of way

IN SHORT:

We cannot even be given the right to roam on public paths and footbridges, let alone expecting what is either side to be given to us as open access land!

MORE DETAIL:

However, I chose 'Right to roam on rights of way' (it has a nice ring about it and I love alliteration!) because I do feel that right to roam on publicly owned land, as at the South Downs, north of Brighton last month, is already happening without any repercussions, whatsoever.  It does not even need new stiles or gates or footbridges!  Therefore, that campaign is far less important than enabling access for walkers who have difficulty clambering over rickety stiles rotting away and, without steps.  In addition, of course, footbridges and their attendant rights of way are closed permanently, even for the vast majority who can easily climb stiles, because local authority funding is never available for this very basic, elementary kind of right to roam.

I fear the phrase, "right to roam" is being used to invite trespass on wealthy people's private land.  Although I do that myself, it is either unintentional or, always done to ask for the permission of the very first person I come across in the hope that he/she is the landowner.  In addition, we need to keep the very blessed wealthy landowners on board to give us permissive paths on old railway lines and, even to fund stile replacement/maintenance and for footbridges to be replaced/maintained.  After eleven years of austerity, we are becoming more and more dependant on the wealthy to sponsor, to donate and to help out the state's insistence that taxes - even from the wealthy - must be kept as low as possible.

I think it is far more important to have simply the ability to roam on existing footpath infrastructure that is being taken away from us through neglect and the passage of time.  That kind of right to roam is pretty basic but is being lost.

I do think that with this present kind of Conservative government, with the Police Bill, HS2, cutting overseas aid but vastly boosting expenditure on the arms trade, armaments and nuclear weapons, it is totally unrealistic to expect them to even countenance their donors and supporters giving us the freedom to roam, officially and without prior permission, all over their vast private estates, largely given over to arable and dairy farming anyway - unlike swathes of upland in Scotland that has full open access.

Having more land designated as open access when it is already, unofficially available would be nice to have but, it is access to existing official rights of way that must come first and be foremost in any campaign, I think.  I am deliberately hi-jacking the "right to roam" phrase for a much more noble and vital cause!

to Kevin O'Keefe re stiles and steps

On Fri, 28 May 2021 at 09:09, Tim Weller <timweller1@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Kevin

I am very concerned that nearly all my correspondence by text and e-mail with Dudley MBC is totally ignored.  I will be making an official complaint in due course, unless officers and members are prepared to take my positive, constructive and helpful suggestions seriously and, future contacts are politely, professionally and competently responded to.

Over the 45 years I have lived in the borough, I have seen at least six of your railway lines destroyed/not used by councillors and the officers who advise them.  The latest is the principal, mainline railway from Burton on Trent to Bristol via Brierley Hill or/aka, the Derby to Devon via Dudley railway, although nearly 50 Kms remain for commuter, regional and freight trains to return.  It will simply have to be the world's first train-tram-train mainline when you get round to doing something and finally finishing it!

I am now asking that just as you have, quite knowingly, been destroying your transport infrastructure and thus boosting, very nicely, greenhouse gases to worsen our prospects during the course of this century, you turn over a new leaf.  Do try and avoid wasting money and finite resources to make the climate, ecological, nature emergencies even worse.  I am referring to the increasing difficulty of old men like me to have access or, the right to roam, on our rights of way.  Many old walkers, as I am, are having difficulty in climbing stiles

I have been told that £9,500 worth of new wooden stiles are in stock but are not being used to replace rickety and dangerous ones in Dudley's very important southern green belt.  I am asking that you do not, please, replace stiles that are sound and safe.  The problem, I think, is more the lack of footsteps.  Many OAPs like me really do have difficulty.  One woman told me that her husband has to push her from behind to get over the very well-used but solid, secure stile at grid reference SO 97984 82268.  Map, below.  Please do NOT remove the boulder if this is one of the stiles you want to replace!  Unless, of course, your solution in cutting/installing steps will make things even easier for the less athletic to get over it.  In my opinion, this stile is solid and safe.  Perhaps, one step on the field or west or upper side of the stile and two or three on the steep slope where the boulder is.  Can a solution to the problem incorporate the solid rock step?

In addition, although I know farmers and landowners in our bleak, barren, backward Black Country have no wish to make things easier or welcoming for even caring walkers, it is still worth asking if they would agree to the well-used and popular, elsewhere, self-closing metal gates - instead of stiles.  Somehow, if we can by talking, we may be able to educate them and bring them into the 21st century rather than being stuck in the Dark Ages!

I would like an encouraging, courteous and professional response, please, if that is not too much to ask!

Best wishes

Not rewilding but simple maintence of their existing responsibilities - PLEASE!

The councils' higher priority for spending should be to do something about their lack of maintenance and replacement of footbridges and stiles on public paths that are leading to bridges being closed and paths off-limits to some. Some really rickety, dangerous stiles mean that we OAPs are losing the right to roam. My days of river swimming to get across are over, too!!

PROTECT AND RESTORE OUR GREEN AND WILD PLACES, if we can't expand them!

 "It allows nature to thrive, taking carbon from the air and boosting health." Tear Fund (part of DEC - Disasters Emergency Committee)

We can expand the Clent Hills Country Park into a 32 sq Kms Regional Park as part of the new W Mids National Park.  For farming, recreation and re-creation of habitats to boost biodiversity.

It is vital that our 32 sq Kms Golden Green Triangle in that corner between the Black Country and Brum, with the two 1,000 feet high Clent Hills, is upgraded, invigorated and protected from built development.  To address the Covid, Climate, Ecological, Nature disasters.

Not a single hedgerow, it seems, has been laid to rejuvenate even one section.  Instead there are gaps galore.  Fences and barbed wire are taking over.  Hedging trees must be planted to absorb carbon.

Every Home Office wood must be handed over to the Woodland Trust for their care, maintenance and to be open to the public.  In this way, these precious woods can be restored and be a carbon sink.

Every field is needed as part of the national effort to feed humans before animals to feed humans.  Farming in tune with nature is essential and farming using fewer finite fossil fuels, too.  Have more people working on the land.  In this way, slow the Climate, Nature disaster.  AND SLOW THE ROT!

Fewer fields for horses and more for food!  Reverse horsiculture!

No fields for built development.  Keep smaller, much warmer, practical homes to the conurbation outside the three sides of the triangle.  In this way, to help ourselves to get out of the warming greenhouse.

The hundreds of miles of public highway paths must be upgraded with every stile made safe for walkers and runners.  Far too many paths are muddy in wet weather and almost every stile is in need of replacement or repair.  The councils and the WMCA must work with the farmers and landowners to get them up to standard.  Funds must be used to incentivise them.

Tim Weller  27 March 2021

Tweet to Guy Shrubsole

Plse read my last email to you about the right to roam on even public rights of way being restricted to younger walkers who can risk climbing loose, rickety stiles, many without footsteps. Elders, like me, lose out. Dudley Council in the bleak, backward Black Country is BAD!