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We have criticised the government’s proposed Land-Use Framework for failing to address public access.
While the society welcomes the plan to produce a framework, and recognises the complexities of doing so, it notes that the government’s proposal is geared to protecting farmland and food security, and does not consider the role of land in accommodating, providing, and creating a demand for public access and its recreational value. The society believes that public access cannot be divorced from the question of land use.
Colwall footpath 28 in Herefordshire, with a generous width, demonstrating what could be achieved more widely if farmers were incentivised to provide more access. Photo: Open Spaces Society
Our full response is available here. In it, we point out that the countryside is the product of millennia of public access, and the history of our landscape is written in our network of ancient public rights of way. Yet this gets no mention in the consultation.
The society also asks why the government has blatantly ignored the findings of the House of Lords Land Use in England Committee in 2022. These included a recommendation to review public access ‘in the context of a land-use framework and a clear prioritisation of access embodied within it, to emphasise the importance and reduce potential conflict with other important uses. It is particularly important to prioritise access near locations where people live.’
While welcoming the manifesto commitments to create nine new national river walks and three new national forests in England, we call for greater opportunities for public access throughout the countryside, and especially where people live.
The society, in its response, makes proposals of how the land-use framework can promote and improve public access.
- Agricultural grants to incentivise access and ensure that landowners and occupiers are penalised when in receipt of public subsidy for land where paths and access are not in good condition (thereby assisting the hard-pressed local authorities which have a duty of enforcement).
- Local authorities to have a duty to promote their rights-of-way improvement plans.
- Long-term, secure funding for protected landscapes. Here the statutory bodies, working in partnership, have shown skill and demonstrated value for money in innovation.
- Better accessibility of existing rights of way and the minor-road network to non-motorised users, with improved surfaces, signposting, awareness, and confidence.
- Facts about access opportunities to become more widely available and embedded in contemporary digital media. For instance, information about rights of way and public access shown on Ordnance Survey maps should be incorporated in apps such as Google Maps.
- The Land Registry’s register of title to be available at no charge; this information is invaluable when reporting blocked paths and claiming historic ways, but also a vital mechanism in bringing about the better management of land.
Says our general secretary Kate Ashbrook: ‘The land-use framework could do so much more for the public—it’s a missed opportunity. It is focused on agricultural land and food production but, as the House of Lords committee recommended in 2022, it should equally be about public access. You cannot separate public access from land use, it should be at the heart of the framework.
‘It’s time the government celebrated the Labour movement’s proud history of access provision for all, and stepped up its efforts to improve this throughout England, and especially on people’s doorsteps.’