Interview with the Ramblers' new CEO

Some of you will have read the interview with Benedict Southworth, the Ramblers' new CEO, in the current issue of tgo. He is reported as stating, in reference to the Country Land and Business Association's (CLA) document The Right Way Forward:

The worst case scenario is that you have designated spaces where people get out
of their cars into a massive car park, walk around a reserve and get back into
their cars - it desecrates the whole concept of the countryside. It takes away a
common law and legal right, and it just infuriates me beyond belief. I'm already
apopletic!

This is a wildly inaccurate description of the CLA's proposals as the following brief extracts from the document demonstrate:

Page 1
There is a dichotomy within the public rights of way system in England and Wales. On the one hand it offers more than 137,000 miles of public footpath, bridleway and byway providing a level of access admired throughout the world; on the other hand it is governed by a failing bureaucratic and legislative system which is long-winded, expensive and completely incomprehensible to the ordinary person.

Page 6
Simplifying the rules and applying common sense, while at the same time ensuring that paths are well signed, maintained and unobstructed, are basic principles that should apply to all paths.

Page 7
These proposals do not damage public rights of way. They will strengthen the system, make it more flexible, more efficient and, most importantly, more rational and understandable to the ordinary person.

Page 25
Easy-to-follow signage and well-waymarked paths are essential. Highway authorities
should ensure that paths are well signed and the surface is easy to use, and that highway budgets provide for proper maintenance. Paths should be waymarked and landowners should ensure that there are no obstructions.

Page 26
Highway authorities should be encouraged by government to properly enforce use of rights of way, including situations where problems are experienced by landowners.

The Ramblers, and walkers generally, may well have reservations about some of the CLA's proposals, but criticism should be fair and based on what is stated and not on atavistic prejudice and a wholly inaccurate rubbishing of the document.

Hugh
Ramblers' Life Member

To be fair he did say worst case scenario. Best case scenario according to the CLA document to be fair is just as likely to happen. I mean landowners are just as likely to play fair and ensure no row obstructions, as in page 25 that you quoted, as a campaigning organisation is going to be completely factual in it's statements. RA is about gaining and maintaining hard fought for rights, they have to gold the lily a but. Just as the CLA is doing with their document. They're trying to come across, imho, as seeming totally reasonable when from past situations they have come across as far from that.
I doubt either side is totally right and honest.

TP

I've been involved in rights of way work for more than forty years and can remember the time when the CLA was advocating a wholesale rationalization of the path network in England and Wales to provide a series of circular walks because, the organization claimed, that was what walkers wanted.

Over the years the CLA has changed and has come to accept that rights of way are here to stay and that they must be protected by its members. I read the CLA's members' magazine and it often has articles about rights of way that I cannot fault for accuracy.

It is inevitable that the Ramblers' views on rights of way will be different from those of the CLA's, but I reiterate that the CLA regularly advises its members to comply with rights of way law. Also, both the Ramblers and the CLA have signed up to an agreement, Stepping Forward, about the future of rights of way.

We have to distinguish between the policies of the the two organizations and the actions of individual members. The minority of landowners who do not respect the rights of way across their land are doing so in defiance of the law and the advice and policies of the association to which they belong. Similarly the minority of members of the Ramblers who trespass and walk carelessly several walkers abreast  through pasture intended for hay (it's only grass innit?), not only cause damage and expense to landowners, but do so against the advice of the organization to which they belong.

Benedict's Southworth's comment was not just gilding the lily but was a wholly inaccurate and disgraceful travesty of the CLA's policies on rights of way. Such wild statements bring the Ramblers into disrepute.

Not all landowners are angels and neither, it seems, are all ramblers.

Hugh