Sunday, 30 November 2025
Hebden Bridge conference calls for more countryside access
The anniversary this weekend of the landmark 2000 Countryside and Rights of Way Act gaining Royal Assent was marked with a national conference which called for further government legislation on access to the countryside.
The event, held on Saturday (Nov 29), brought together ramblers, naturalists, kayakers, climbers and others looking for greater access to English landscapes and land.
Participants heard contributions from veteran campaigner Kate Ashbrook, general secretary of the Open Spaces Society, from author and activist Amy-Jane Beer of the Right to Roam group, and from Jack Cornish from the Ramblers. Also speaking were Andy Macnae MP, secretary of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on outdoor recreation and access to nature, and his colleague Phil Brickell MP.
Photo: Walkers at the once-forbidden Mere Stones north of Hebden Bridge mark the 25th anniversary of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act – the 'right to roam' legislation - gaining Royal Assent in November 2000.
The event was held in Hebden Bridge, appropriately a centre of access campaigning and trespassing in the years before the 2000 Act became law. "The Countryside and Rights of Way Act was a hard-won achievement, but twenty-five years on we are increasingly aware how limited access remains in England compared to the position in Scotland," said Andrew Bibby, one of the event organisers. "The government included a pledge on access in its 2024 manifesto and we're now pressing for real action on this commitment. There's still no sign yet of the eagerly awaited Green Paper on new access legislation."
The conference noted that less than 9% of England's land is open to the public by right, and that twenty million people live more than fifteen minutes way from any access to nature. "There was consensus that the Countryside and Rights of Way Act, important though it was, is unfinished business," Andrew Bibby added.
Seasoned eighty-year old hikers mingled at the event with at least one participant who admitted she wasn't even born when the 2000 Act was passed but who went away undertaking to mobilise her own generation around the access issue.
The event concluded with the unanimous adoption of the 'Hebden Bridge Declaration', with its call for "ambitious new legislation" from the government for access to the land and inland waters of England. The aim should be "an England where all her people can enjoy the benefits of outdoor recreation and of access to nature", it says.
Before the conference many of the participants took part in a walk to the Mere Stones, high up on the South Pennines moors north of Hebden Bridge. The Mere Stones, and all the surrounding moorland, were hidden behind 'keep out' signs before the implementation of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act.