Ramblers demand the Right to Roam!

 

It seems quite astonishing that the Conservative government minister who's responsible for deciding whether the people in England can gain access to nature, and to land to walk on, is a huge landowner who owns 12,000 acres of West Berkshire.

Richard Benyon, who owns the 12,000 acre Englefield estate, which is the largest estate in West Berkshire, is the government minister who has been put in charge of deciding whether to broaden access to the English countryside.

Just 8% of England's land has free access, including coastal paths and moorlands, and campaigners want this to change. Those who campaign for the "Right to Roam", point out that Benyon, was involved in the Agnew review, which looked into broadening access to the English countryside and which was shelved with little explanation. The Agnew review had promised a "quantum shift in the public's relationship with nature."

Although in bygone days, a lot of land was held in common ownership, this land was enclosed and often stolen by landowners. Over a third of the land in England, remains in the hands of the aristocracy, mostly in private estates like Englefield. The Englefield estate which has been owned by the Benyon family for hundreds of years, contains land that was once a common and which was absorbed into the private estate.

According to the Ramblers, the estate contains lost footpaths and was once farmed by commoners who held rights to farm the land. They say the process of enclosing the land was started in 1802, by Richard Benyon, an ancestor of the current minister, who moved an entire village out of sight of Englefield house, to make way for a deer park. The Ramblers say that in 1854, Benyon was granted a stopping order by his friends in parliament to close the public road that ran in front of his house.

On Sunday, a 150 campaigners visited the Englefield estate to call on the minister to open up his land for people to walk on and to have picnics, and to extend access to the green spaces of England to the general public. Amongst the trespassers, were morris dancers and musicians. Campaigners who have previously met the access to nature minister, say that he told them that their proposals made him feel "warm and fuzzy inside."