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

My friends have a similar situation. Except part of there land is woods. The area is all fenced off and people just climb over the fence!!! They have their dogs out, offload of course because it is their garden. And people just have their dogs with them. The kids rides their motor bikes in the area so it’s very dangerous. People just don’t care at all.

There is a public footpath near me which I’ve walked a few times and they have the sign below.
My dog is always on her lead and I pick up the dog poo. Unfortunately there are always the entitled CFs who seem to think they can roam all over the place.

Unfortunately for this landowner, the footpath runs across their horse paddock and across their drive so they have put these signs up.
I wish I could afford to buy my own land but sadly that is a lottery win!

The OP is speaking about one specific point on the path. Stick a section of heras fencing across it.

Yes, people today are incredibly entitled. In the last 10 years, the amount of people I've had to ask to please leave my private garden - over two houses, one in London and then we sold and moved to the north east. I was told 'Ohh it's the north, you'll get no problems there, unlike that awful London!' But it's just as bad here!

The times I've said something, I have met with vicious verbal abuse, things thrown at my door, etc. Instead of just saying "ooops, sorry!"

I am also a dog walker and live by lots of fields and I am VERY careful about not straying off to the private bits. I'd be mortified if I ever did. I know plenty here do stray and don't care. I don't know why, and it's not young people, it's mostly old!

I had a nice chat with a local farmer recently, who was forced to put 6 private signs up around his fields, as people were just taking the piss. I told him I despise trespassers, too, and he was just lovely.

Sorry op, people are shit. I sympathise massively.

All those saying fence or hedge it off obviously have no concept of how incredibly expensive this would be to do and maintain on a farm.

We have a farm, OP. I agree, it’s incredibly annoying, especially those with dogs who are not trained to be around sheep. Sometimes people just wander around and even try to engage me in conversation when I am in my own bloody garden.

We do have several of working dogs on the farm so we will occasionally let them run around and the non farm dogs are terrified of them and we never see those owners again…

ETA: I think PP’s suggestion of putting up signs re: pesticides being used is an excellent one.

Could you talk to a solicitor about putting up a legal notice by the bend, warning people not to trespass?

Is there a local paper that could run a story for you, so that the local dog walkers are made aware? I believe there is a new law around owners of dogs that cause damage to livestock; make it clear that you will be vigilant and prosecuting anyone who breaks the law.

The trouble is that the small minority are entrenched in the idea that they can do whatever they want to do. I don't think it is just people not used to the countryside. We also live near a very popular walking / cycling path. There is a gate at one point which people often use as a break point. Throughout the year, we pick up litter left there by people who clearly can't be bothered to carry stuff home. Looking at their gear, some of these are clearly regular walkers and cyclists.

That is awful, OP. People are arseholes

There is no boundary. The footpath is a public right of way to cross land they own.

PS the only time I have ever walked across crops is when the path is totally unclear. It leaves me feeling 'if you can't be arsed to co-operate, I can't be arsed to be reasonable either'. This probably isn't the case but I'd check clarity is still good for someone unused to maps & walking directions.

In Scotland we have Access Officers who can help with guidance on such issues, is there not an equivalent in England?

Signs, fences and gates are the way to stop this. Some people will have been walking these routes for years, decades, many farmers don’t mind as long as you stick to the edges and one local farm I know actively encourages it during the seasons they have just planted seeds as people with (well behaved) dogs are more effective than scarecrows. It’s often very difficult to follow public footpaths and I’ve ended up climbing over gates having got lost many times

I would put up signs saying “Private property “ and “Beware of the bull” There aren’t many people who would chance it.

This is puzzling. I'd expect a few arseholes but in my experience the majority of walkers are not like this. Do you live near a town or major beauty spot so you get a lot of people who are not used to the countryside? If not, are the signs as clear as you think they are? I'd ask a friend to walk the path with you and check it's obvious which way to go. Is one of the apps giving mistaken instructions?

You could try putting up extra signs about some kind of danger as well as it being private e.g. beware of the bull or even 'private shooting range' 😉

As a land manager I feel your pain. That said, exactly how plentiful are the signs? Are they really, really obvious and exactly placed where people need to change direction? Do they have words or pictorgrams? I've found that lots of people don't know what a blue or yellow arrow means any more.

It sounds like people have been heading the wrong way for a while now and a desire line has formed. Once that's happened you're going to need a lot of enforcement and ideally something physical to disrupt the habit - ditch, hedge, ploughed strip, herbal lay?

maybe im being too naive

You really are. I walk at least once a week on my friend's farm, with her, and our dogs. It's well over 1,000 acres of arable and has more than one PROW crossing it - think all denoted as Public Footpaths. Their attitude is that, as they own such a huge amount if the countryside, it should still be accessible to the public where possible (not just the PROW). As such all their fields, and up to and around the two woodland areas, have wide 'tracks' mown and unplanted at the edges for people to walk on. There is only one small area, very close to their houses, that they have sign posted as private. All they ask is that people are respectful. They aren't. Every week we take litter picking gear and fill a bag each. Every week there's evidence of people who have walked across the crop. Often she is told by people, doing something she politely asks them not to 'I've got permission from the farmer' - who don't give a toss when told 'Er, I AM the farmer!'. She regularly has things like mattresses and other large waste chucked over the fences of the houses that back on to one particular area of the farm. If she's lucky they won't have also set fire to it. People on quad bikes and scramblers damaging vast areas of crop (large amounts of the farm butt against roads and lanes and it can't all be fenced/ditched or gated - but in any case, the gates that are there have been regularly vandalised to gain access anyway. Children 'baiting' the combine happens every year. We've both been aggressively verbally abused, she's been threatened with violence more than once, threatened with dogs and twice threatened with a gun. She has had to call the police out more than once when followed back to the farm buildings by aggressive men. These are not even isolated incidences, they happen often.

As a keen reader of this site it always amazes me how many people don’t read the OP properly before commenting.

This op clearly states they have plenty of signs making it obvious where the path goes.

We lived on a small holding with a permissive footpath that ran alongside our garden. It was clearly signed along with a request to keep all dogs a leads.The majority of people who used it were respectful. However, a couple of times a year a family (usually tourists) would set up a picnic in the middle of our garden. Even had one group arguing about their right to do this-couldn’t believe their gall. Used to send out my large(but very friendly) dog to share their food. Some people are so entitled.

Well yes, obviously 🤣 I was commenting on how fortunate I feel to have right to roam in my beautiful local area 🙂

The problem is we have co-operated with CROWS re signage, repairing styles, clearing the path. I also support public rights of way but it should not be an unfettered right. Keeping to paths, keeping dogs on the lead not chucking empty beer cans, crisps packets into people's gardens, not camping in people's gardens. Some of this stuff is just basic consideration but if livestock is hurt or worse, crops are damaged, etc, I can see why some people get to the point they want to restrict access.

when ive been in fields that are like this they have fenced off along the path

Really really clear signage. Like a kids trail signage. If the field they are going in is separate from the footpath put some geese in there although they do need locking up at night.

We’ve stock fenced the public footpaths as it was the only way to stop people letting their dogs do laps and shit everywhere 🙄 fortunately the paths run down the outside of the fields so we could, cost a bloody fortune though and we’ve sacrificed about a fifth of usable grazing.
There were also complaints on the village FB group about having “used those fields for years” - should have bloody bought them then mate!

I'm clearly the only one trying to visualise this and would like a map or photos of the path etc 😆

If people are constantly not turning towards the woods and continuing the 'wrong' way, has that area been worn and now looks like the path continues? Could you put up an arrow towards the woods and as others have said- private property past this point, dogs will be shot, poison in use etc. Ideally, I'd have an electric fence around the area, but realise its costly and without seeing a pic, might not be feasible.

You have to be an idiot to think that fencing off a (or many) ROWs on an arable farm, that needs access for machinery to crops, and could be up 1,000 acres, is even possible.