Please use the countryside responsibly- so fed up

[jacks11]

On a rare day off from my day job, I have once again spent the day dealing with a series of thoughtless and/or completely entitled idiots behaving totally irresponsibly on our land. I had thought the one (very small) silver lining of this awful situation would be that this lambing season would see us free from so many problems from people out for a walk etc. But still having issues.

Today I stopped no fewer than 7 families traipsing through either the yard, our garden (one family stopping to have a seat on the picnic table/bench in our garden) or the lambing sheds to have a look. One family also stopped off to admire the lambs in one of the fields then preceded to take there youngish children (under 10) into said fields to see them closer. Several gates left open, people climbing over gates etc. I caught someone feeding our old pony apples and a doughnut! We’ve had rubbish being dropped. Dogs off leads etc.

What I cannot understand is how so many are getting to us- they must be breaching the guidance to only exercise locally or walking at least 7 miles from the nearest village. Which I doubt with the ages of some of the children.

When DH politely approached the family in our garden they were really rude, citing their “right to roam”- not even slightly apologetic when pointed out they were in our garden so they had no right to be there. Ditto several other people- don’t seem to realise right to roam does not apply to private gardens or land used for commercial reasons- I.e. yards/lambing sheds and you must behave responsibly (e.g. close gates, don’t let dogs off leads near livestock, don’t leave rubbish, don’t worry livestock, don’t walk across crops etc).

When you add in the situation with Covid, you’d think people would be careful about touching gates etc unnecessarily- but no. Lots of people have vulnerable family members and this is just an added headache- having to constantly be aware that people may have touched the gates/railings/doors etc.

Please use the countryside responsibly- some of us live on the land you are using as a playground. You are putting our livestock at risk- please don’t feed livestock/horses for that reason- and sometimes yourself in danger. There is no excuse for leaving rubbish.

Rant over!!

Good grief that sounds awful. We always stop to look at lambs and horses and any animals really. But we always stay on our side of the fence and would never dream of feeding them. I give a horse a pat if it comes over, had a good cuddle with the softest pony in the world yesterday, but the people you're dealing with sound ridiculous!

Are you in Scotland? Wondered with the reference to 'right to roam'. In England it's more a case of sticking to footpaths I believe. It is in lowland England, but in upland areas there is a right to roam over land above a certain height above sea level and which isn't under cultivation or excluded for various other reasons.

YANBU. We had people parking up outside our house dogging two nights ago because they thought no one would be around in the countryside (I mean, never mind the HOUSE they parked next to with our living room light on). And someone last Saturday dumped a mattress in our front garden, I'm presuming they did it because the tip in the city is shut. Not to mention the steady stream of people who have taken up cycling and stop to eat their sausage rolls. It's like people think that "stay at home" means all the people living in the countryside have magically evaporated.

My friend is having this at the moment. The footpath runs alongside a hedge at the side of two fields. Normally no problem, it’s a popular area for ramblers - she keeps the gate and stile in good order etc. . This year they have had picnickers in the field next to the lambs, with children and two dogs just being allowed to run about, sunbathers , people doing posed selfies against their barn , rubbish being dumped, fly tippers - and all have reacted badly when challenged with ‘ it’s a Public Footpath’ . Only next to the hedge, it is. She’s considering doing what other small, farmers are doing and fencing it in - which will spoil the experience for the decently behaved normal walkers. . It’s up a small lane, not near a town and they would have to to drive to get there - there are cars parked dangerously.

Is there some kind of bush telegraph going on that is causing so much of this ? Or just simultaneous arrogance and entitlement to someone’s home and livelihood ?

It's not a popular opinion but I don't agree that the general public should have the right to walk over working farms, unless given express permission by the farmer.

Ramblers and walkers are often a complete nuisance.

Do you have a shotgun?
I'm sure pointing one at the irresponsible selfish entitled prats will shift them off your property in no time.
We live in the countryside and have seen so many idiots walking around the fields, usually these idiots are in the pub.

I'd definitely put signs up, perhaps with warning pictures, "animals in this area may carry disease, do not enter", "Private, deep clean taking place", also "area recently sprayed". Rotate regularly.

Sorry peanut but that's a perfect example of 'aren't other people awful, but I'm ok doing what I'm doing'

What if everyone who comes along has a cuddle with the pony? How do you know that minutes before you someone with asymptomatic CV19 didn't sneeze on the pony due to hayfever whilst giving it a cuddle?

In our case local people have deviated from the footpath over a number of years so there's now a more scenic walk by a river. Every single one of them would moan down the pub about people not sticking to footpaths and sympathise how dreadful it was whilst considering themselves exempt from the rules because they are local so they are ok to do it because they 'know us'.

The people I asked to put a dog back on a lead today that was defecating in one of our lambing fields were local. It was embarrassing for everyone, but they seemed genuinely baffled that it was a problem for me because I know their dog is friendly . It is, but my sheep don't know that.

Where I live there are lots of public footpaths - often q narrow (you have to walk in single file & many of them have fences either side - how can you possibly stay 2m apart if you meet someone coming the other way?

Tonight as I was driving home after dropping dm's weekly shop off to her I saw a family of 3 with bikes coming out of one of those narrow footpaths.

Public footpaths are for feet fgs. Bridleways are for hooves (and bikes!)

Leave gates as you find them & don't touch anything and keep away from animals. How hard is it?!

I grew up around here. One farmer used to 'police' the local footpaths with a shotgun so perhaps I am more aware than most but even so

It is in lowland England, but in upland areas there is a right to roam over land above a certain height above sea level and which isn't under cultivation or excluded for various other reasons

Except between 1st March and 31st July where under the Countryside and Rights of Way (CROW) Act 2000 for the protection of increasingly endangered groundnesting birds such as the curlew and skylark the law says you are supposed to stick to footpaths and keep dogs on a lead even on upland open access land.

very very few people do though.

When DH politely approached the family in our garden they were really rude, citing their “right to roam”

I had never heard of a right to roam, so had to google it to get the historical context for the UK. There's no such legal concept in the US, but we have a large network of national parks that are of course open to the public.

There are farmers in my area who allow limited tours for a fee, mostly to school groups and they're closely supervised.

Sorry you've had to contend with this OP, on top of all the rest that's going on.

Tell em about it!!! The increase in numbers recently is crazy and everyone of them is happily touching gates hundreds of others have touched......

The worse by far were the couple today merrily walking along and filming (!!) the barns ect. And then got stroppy when I asked what they were doing. How would they like it if I came and filmed their house all day!?!
They then tried to accuse me of locking a bridleway gate- no they were just to thick to work out horse to open the gate.

I meant tell me about it

I feel your pain.

We get this with idiots exercising their dogs in one of our fields. No footpath.

We confronted some idiot who had just chucked his dog over the gate and let it run round while he stands there watching from the roadside. He’d been seen before doing this. Of course shit everywhere.

He was totally unapologetic. Said there was no sign saying it was private. I asked if he had a sign on his garden saying private and when he said he didn’t said it was exactly the same. If there’s no footpath you don’t go in and he wouldn’t like it if I came and exercised horses in his garden. He started swearing, saying he wasn’t doing any harm, etc, etc.

Can you take photographs of them ? Then when/if there’s any litter left or a dog has been let off lead you can post their mugshots on local Facebook groups .
I’d be tempted to follow them home and have a picnic in their garden . I actually know of a farmer who did this .
Can you walk around with a shotgun over your arm ? Only half joking .

Can you spread some slurry ? I did hear of some townies driving out to their country retreat during the lockdown . The local farmers started spreading slurry 😂

Please could I just ask someone with sheep/lambs:
I have a running route that includes a footpath through a field of sheep and currently lambs. I’ve been walking through the sheep slowly so as not to alarm them.
Is that the best thing to do? Or should I leave the footpath and go around the perimeter of the field as far from the sheep as possible?
Or is it really dreadful to be going through the field at all?

If you know anyone with pigs or hens , even a few buckets dumped near the gates might put them off ?

The farmer would prefer that you’re not there at all atm Typhoon .

Get very clear signs up and sprinklers. And a high power hose for those that are more stubborn. What are they going to do, call the police?

We don’t have huge issues with walkers in NI as farmers have tended to block many rights of way over the years .
The ramblers assoc have attempted to address the issues but walkers aren’t welcome tbh and the councils don’t want to fight the farmers /landowners .
It’s bliss not having inconsiderate wankers walking across our fields .

We get it every year without fail. I (naively, it would seem) thought that with lockdown and supposed to be exercising “near home” that as we are quite out in the sticks that we may be quieter this year.

Every single year we have idiots wandering into the garden. Every year we have people leaving gates open (despite signs reminding them to do so). Every year we have people leaving rubbish, letting their dogs and children roam free, putting the livestock and themselves at risk. And every year they are in the barns, the yard, the sheds and the stables, putting kids on machinery for a photo (for Facebook or Instagram, no doubt). People love to feed or par the ponies/horses (including foals, which is foolish)- despite lots of signs asking them not to. Resorted to 2 layers of high voltage electric fencing- again signs up- to put people off. It doesn’t and I regularly get complaints that someone or their child got a nasty shock. They seem genuinely surprised when they don’t get a profuse apology. Honestly, they wander round like it’s a zoo or play park!

And It’s not just an odd one or two- it is daily. And includes the odd local, unfortunately- we have a few regulars who just HAVE to exercise their “right to roam” but the manner in which they do so betrays their complete lack of understanding of their rights and responsibilities relating to that piece of legislation. I am also aware some landowners don’t live up to their side of things either- but honestly at this time of year I can’t blame them for trying to make access to their land difficult/unpleasant- trying to keep the idiots out!

I really wish we could make changes to the right to roam so that we could tackle those who behave badly and have some sort of deterrent.

After all, if I came to your property and trashed the garden, had a picnic, let my dog shit in your garden, then refused to leave until it suited me and left my rubbish behind when i finally did deign to leave, I’m fairly sure the majority of people would call the police. I may well be charged with breach of the peace or something. But do the same thing on farmland or estate land? There is very little ever done about it.

If I walked into anyone’s place of work and damaged all the equipment/ furniture/products being sold or manufactured there and so on- pretty sure the business owner would expect me to be charged and/or pay for the damage I’d caused. Or if you are an employee- how would you feel if I caused the same damage but your boss decided to make you pay for the loss out if your own wages? There’d be an outcry and wailing about how unfair it was.

But when you damage our fencing/gates, trample over crops, let livestock escape by leaving gates open, feed livestock, let your children or dogs frighten the livestock causing abortion/injuries etc; or leave us with clean up costs for your rubbish- it amounts to the same thing. It costs money to fix that fence/clear up your mess and vets fees are expensive. If we lose livestock, either directly or through reduced numbers of live lambs being born etc, this impacts on our livelihoods.

Given this, I think there should be severe penalties for -rigorously enforced- for those causing issues. though suspect may be difficult to identify those responsible in many cases. After all, pretty sure if I damaged someone else’s property/business it wouldn’t be ignored.

One of my neighbours put one of his very large (though docile as they come) bulls in the first field they come to- there is a path round the edge they can use but is much longer and goes through a slightly boggy bit of ground which seems to put quite a few off (odd, given they’ve gone for a walk in the country not a walk down the pavement or the tarmac paths in the park). He says people often wander down, see the bull and turn back he could improve drainage in the boggy bit, but doesn’t see why he should go to the effort and expense given how people behave.

Perhaps we need to adopt similar tactics as signs and tackling people when we see them are clearly not working.

I can’t believe ( although I know you’re not lying ) that people think they have the right to walk through your garden and into your barns and stables . With the lockdown would it be worthwhile having a chat with your local MP ?
I’m not sure I could cope with what you are having to put up with atm .
Are there not certain times of year when the rules around Right to roam are not applicable?

Do you have one field they must walk through to access the rest of the footpath ? I’d buy a huge bull especially for that field . Make sure you put up a notice about entering at their own risk . Perhaps if one person gets killed it will put others off .
And yes to the boggy ground . Dig it up a bit and dump some slurry in it ?