AIBU to be fed up with walkers trespassing on our land?

It’s infuriating. Dh owns some fields and there is a public footpath which runs through it. Family keep horses on the fields. People would let their dogs off lead, running amok and shitting everywhere. We’ve had Heras style 7ft high metal fencing installed so any walkers and dogs are effectively in a metal cage walking through the field and are restricted to the path. Looks awful, does the job. The locals were enraged.

We have found other people using our fields which don’t have a footpath as a secure dog paddock. They literally drive up, throw the dog over the gate and stand watching them. I had a particularly heated argument once with someone who was adamant he wasn’t doing anything wrong. Was blatantly not going to pick poo up. Had no concept of moving livestock into their for grazing and the danger of dog poo. Said there was no sign saying it was private. So I said I’d come and sit in his back garden which I bet didn’t have a private sign on it either.

We have a footpath that crosses our farm. Thankfully, people do stick to the path as otherwise you’d have to go up and down a steep hill and it’s obviously in view of our house, so walking off the footpath would bring them closer to us and they don’t tend to do that.

I think electric fencing without a gate is the way to go. Non-farming people are very nervous about electric fences. Don’t give them a way through, no access to any way to disconnect it on the public side. You may loose a bit of usable land, but would save the aggro.

I believe you OP - some people just do not care.
I walk my dog a lot and the amount of litter and dog poo just left in our beautiful woods and fields - and along the roads in our village - is a travesty.
I've started picking it up myself, as I walk, because I can't stand it.

Fences are the answer or put up a big sign at the footpath turn which says private property keep off, stay on path

IME, most ramblers and dog walkers absolutely do get arsey when challenged. I had dog walkers letting their dogs chase my horses, whacking my horses with those ski stick things, stuffing their crisp bags and pop bottles into my dry stone walls, climbing over the dry stone walls and pulling the top stones off because they were too bloody lazy to use the stiles (on one memorable occasion because their fat arse was too wide to fit through the stile).

I electric fenced the entire place but it was still a nightmare, almost daily I'd find the posts pulled out of the ground, gates left open.

So I moved to France, bought a property in the middle of nowhere, with no footpaths or rights of way. Now I have to contend with pissed up arseholes with guns and untrained hunt dogs running all over my land for 6 months of the year, chasing my horses and killing my chooks.

Never ceases to amaze me that folk think they can do whatever they hell they want on someone else's property. Sympathies OP.

Of course it shouldn’t, but if the OP is sure her signage is clear, the route of the path is unambiguous and it’s not wrongly marked on maps or local walking guides, she’s continually dealing with trespassers being aggressive, and the problem of dogshit in her crop, I’m not sure what’s left other than to apply for the path to be rerouted, if that’s possible, or to fence off her crop?

We have this on our land , we’ve put signs and “dummy “ cameras, also attend a local meeting if your village / town has one? Signs & arrows too. I know lots ignore them but as you can’t easily fence it it’s the only thing you can do really. Highly frustrating.

Why should op pay a lot of money for a fence?
I do a lot of countryside walking. It’s so annoying when the paths aren’t clear or where the farmers make access deliberately difficult but it sounds as if op has done all the right things.
OP is right. People are getting more entitled n general but since covid we seem to be at peak dog where everyone thinks the world revolves around their pet and that everyone loves dogs.

"Fence it off" - as if that isn't going to cost thousands, and shouldn't be necessary 🤦

shotgun

Fence in, with high fences even if it’s a pain for you. People will not listen, they do not care and will keep doing it. We’re in a similar boat, we’ve had cars on our fields recently, people just do not give a fuck.

We also have one lady who pops her dog in the gate at the top of a field and walks the road to meet the dog at the bottom gate, this keeps her boots clean. It means that she can not see what is in the field, can't see her dog and definitely has no control over it.

I think the idea of checking your land on all trails etc is a good one as you may find routes online that have the wrong pathway with people following in good faith.

The littler, dog mess and rudeness is inexcusable though. No harm in some out of control for will be shot signs though even if you have no intention of following through

The boundaries probably are fenced. The issue is that a public right of way may not follow the boundary.

I walk in the countryside a lot (without a dog) and really appreciate landowners like the OP who have clear signs. There are some who will do everything in their power to hide the public footpath which means that you run the risk of accidentally trespassing. Some people are really rude and it’s not on, they should be following the path.

is the way they’re going a shortcut?

You need to put up a sign saying 'This field contains crops. These crops are our livelihood and this is private land. Please do not walk any further as you will be trespassing. Thank you.'

And maybe another sign at the bit where they veer off the footpath. Just saying to please continue to follow it?

That's if you can't reasonably fence it off.

Fences cost a lot of money.

Surely the idiots are the ones who read the signs and ignore them?

I know of one bright young thing who genuinely thought that a farmer was being a bit unreasonable being annoyed when he was caught not just trespassing, but pissing, in his paddock.

They walk among us.

Extra signage and maybe fencing is the way to go I think. But as a pp has pointed out, fencing isn’t always practical when planting crops.

I am not a land owner but I do understand the frustration of people walking where they’re not supposed to and dogs fouling the land is not acceptable.

Observing signs and keeping to designated paths ain’t difficult! The entitlement of some people thinking they “can go where they like and do what they want” is bloody annoying.

Hope you find a resolution for this OP….perhaps a few signs claiming ‘beware bull loose’ or ‘crop planted likely to cause harm to dogs’ might get the message across?

Surely it’s up to the walker to ensure they’re on permitted paths (as marked on Ordnance Survey maps) not farmers to pay for expensive fencing?

presumably you’ve signs saying this isn’t a public right of way. You are trespassing. Angry bull in situ etc ?
if so then add an electric fence if you can’t build a permanent fence along the footpath ?
walker here. I’d be mortified if I was trespassing on a path I thought was public

Reading all these replies with interest. We have stock fenced the PROW that crosses our land and have also invested in smart, clear signage denoting private land.

We have also worked with the local council countryside officers and walkers group and have also taken on financial responsibility to maintain vegetation cutting and also footpath resurfacing with approx 30 tonnes of aggregate. It’s now utterly walkable and accessible at all times of the year whereas many years ago it was a quagmire and impassable in winter.

Yet, despite all this effort, we still have a minority of entitled and ignorant behaviour.

• piles of dog poo left along the path, despite there being bins at either wnd
• litter
• bicycles and now electric scooters being used along a footpath
• trwspassing onto land either side
• wrenching off of signage from gates and stock fencing

I dread the long Easter weekend as invariably it brings out a bunch of even more entitled, angry assholes whose only excuse is that we should put up with it because we own the land - and they don’t.
When I flagged up the trespassing issue on the local community Facebook last year, I had one person tell me ‘get a f&cking life’ , with lots of people liking that comment - even the ones we have very naively made donations and offered produce for local charity fundraising events.

I think there’s something dark and unpleasant going on: for a minority, this poor behaviour is viewed by them as being entirely justifiable because it’s privately owned. There is real resentment.
Whereas the reality is we have invested thousands into its upkeep and doing all the right things, certainly in a way that the Local Authority could not afford to do if uunder their ownership. I mean, they can’t even afford to fund their own statutory obligations with regards to PROWs - we do!