Right to Roam groups force MPS to debate plans to curb trespass
THE Government’s plans to make trespassing a criminal offence have been hampered by campaigners who want to extend the right to roam across England.
A petition calling for the Government to drop its manifesto pledge to criminalise trespass will be debated in
Parliament after it gained more than 100,000 votes. Trespassing is currently a civil offence. The campaign was organised by Guy Shrubsole, an activist and author who wrote a book investigating who owns English land.
“It would seem to have worked for several hundred years, if not more, for landowners to be able to take trespassers to court if they wish to sue them,”
Mr Shrubsole said. “To involve the state in something like this seems incredibly authoritarian and unnecessary.”
A Home Office consultation on the proposed legislation is focused on strengthening police powers against the setting up of unauthorised encampments, and has been accused of targeting gypsy and traveller communities.
But Mr Shrubsole says the scope of the law could end up criminalising protests “and also potentially ramblers who take a shortcut through a field, or people who want to spend the night under the stars”. “Boris Johnson, for example, if he wants to go wild camping, could find himself criminalised by his own laws,” he said.
Travel and leisure restrictions imposed during the pandemic have encouraged many to seek out natural beauty spots in their local area.
A survey by the University of Cumbria found 72 per cent of women and 60 per cent of men were more likely to spend time in nature in the future as a result of the lockdown. But that has been accompanied by a surge in littering and “fly camping’” leading the National
‘Given the experience of lockdown, it should really be part of the Government’s public health agenda’
Trust and conservation charities to call for more respect for the countryside.
Mr Shrubsole is also leading a further campaign to extend the Countryside & Rights of Way (CROW) Act, which currently gives the right to roam in just 8 per cent of England.
“Given the experiences of lockdown and the huge amount of evidence showing that access to nature is beneficial for public health, it should really be part of the Government’s
public health agenda,” he said. The Government will not have to set the timetable for a debate over the proposed laws.
Commenting on the petition, Mark Bridgeman, president of the Countryside and Land Association, said: “The Government has consulted on a proposal to make unauthorised encampment an offence, much like it is in many other countries including the Republic of Ireland.
“To interpret such a proposal as seeking to ban public protest, or to criminalise people who walk to the side of a footpath, is a rather imaginative leap. We have seen no evidence, whatsoever, that government has come close to saying what this petition suggests.”