The publication of British government's Countryside and Rights of Way Bill - proposed legislation to improve public access to private land, early in the month probably resulted in less publicity and posturing than might have been expected. The rambling fraternity greeted it enthusiastically, the farm lobby with reservation and the government issued a couple of suitably self-congratulatory news releases.

Improved public access was a prominent New Labour election campaign promise. Since labour won the election it has been subject to a respectable two years of hearings and public inputs processes. Almost everybody's concerns seem to have been recognized to some degree in the legislation. Naturally there are claims of one-sided treatment.

Between 3 and 4.5 million acres - in the region of 10 percent of Britain, of mountain, moor, heath, down and registered common land could be opened up for greater access. The actual drawing of maps for defining the access areas is part of the proposed legislation.

It will exclude cultivated and developed land except where there are existing public footpaths. And, therefore, it should not result directly in significant economic loss to landowners if those exercising their right of access do so responsibly.

What is of more fundamental concern is that this right of access has been given, and the converse right of exclusion has been taken away, without provision for compensation. In view of the very adverse economic circumstances of those seeking a living from the less developed areas that are most severely implicated and the favourable income situation of the general economy, this is unfortunate.

The opportunity to develop non-farm income is now, and will be for the foreseeable future, particularly critical for farmers.

One only has to visit one of the many new health and fitness club and to see people lining up to use "exercise machine" in the sterile environment of a gym, to be convinced that there has to be money somewhere in providing access to the countryside.

The challenge for those providing the right of access, however, is how to exploit the economic opportunity. Unfortunately, the Bill is implicitly dismissive of this. It grants the right with only token responsibilities and limitations.

That opposition to the Bill has tended to centre on the conditions for access and not the fundamental issue of the right of access, indicates the demoralized state of the rural economy. It realizes that it has little chance of fending off the rising tide of urban influence.

On the day that the Bill was published, the minister of agriculture was, incidently, out of his office opening a farmers' market at Camden in deepest London and only two underground stops from New Labour's home away from home at Islington. What clearer message could there be that farming does not count for much when the countryside is the issue?

In an article titled "What kind of people will the British be in 2000?", London's Economist concluded:

"That division [between the economically disadvantaged rural population and affluent townies], stridently expressed, will be the clearest of all illustrations of the changing nature of Britons of 2000."

The only debate possible on this is whether it is a prediction or current reality.

March 13, 2000