A Quiet Walk On Hoogstraaten's Esate

The Guardian has been having a bit of a laugh at the expense of convicted millionaire businessman and rambler hater Nicholas van Hoogstraten.

In today's G2, journalist Stuart Jeffries takes a stroll through Hoogie's East Sussex estate with the Ramblers' Association's Kate Ashbrook. She, apparently, wants it to be known that she found van Hoogstraten 'unfailingly polite and courteous'. Hmmm, wonder why.

Less amusingly, the paper reports that Ashbrook reckons she's spent some £30,000 of her own money on a legal battle to get the footpath running through van Hoogstraten's estate cleared of the obstructions - including barbed wire, industrial refrigerator units and a huge corrugated barn - which he placed across the path.

Ashbrook is currently taking legal action against East Sussex council in an attempt to force them to clear the obstructions to the original path as ordered by the court. Meanwhile there is a diversion in place. An interesting read and a shame the media didn't take the situation seriously until van Hoogstraten was convicted.

Guardian story

RA web site