Trespassers damage our green spaces

WHEN gyms, schools, leisure centres and studios were ordered shut last year, thousands of daily exercisers crowded the waggonways and public footpaths that criss-cross farms.

North Tyneside’s public footpaths were already in poor condition but now some are not even fit for purpose and widespread ignorance of the Highway Code is degrading them further and the land alongside them. The tide of users has been overwhelming and anxietyinducing for farming families, their pets and livestock. Farms have been turned into recreation areas and farmers have borne the brunt of the council’s negligence in maintaining signage and updating Ordnance Survey maps.

Illegal paths across fields, pastures and woodlands are used daily by people who believe it is their right to trespass. I did a three-hour litter pick in one of these areas.

One farm has a re-wilding area for deer. It is off limits to human activities but people have smashed their way in. Last summer, wild campers occupied it.

The same people have run their gun dogs in a nearby conservation area reserved for nesting birds.

The wildflower plots intended for pollinators have been trampled by picnickers and dog walkers.

Farms are now sites for arson, underage drinking, vandalism, illegal assemblies, littering, flytipping, drug taking, dog fouling, assault and trespassing.

The consumptive behaviour so prevalent today illustrates a microcosm of humanity that is responsible for the environmental crises facing our planet. Nature is the dumping ground for the ills of society. When will we wake up and see that we are nature, too? Doug Pazienza, Whitley Bay