[quote flamingflamingos]@GreenlandTheMovie the path in the photo is now fenced, with electric.
But your post is very simplistic. Asides from the reasons I've already stated, fencing footpaths is in no ones interesting. Until coronavirus, the vast majority of footpath users were responsible and respectful.
Fencing the path makes for a less enjoyable walk, surely? It also means that more of the field will be out of production due to machinery workings too close to the fence line, but mostly it's just unnecessary? The only "fenced" footpath we have is down the side of a grass field that is grazed permanently with belties, because our personal feeling is that young cows and members of the general public are a dangerous combination.
If farmers were to act in a responsible way and footpath users were to act responsibly, no one would need to be annoyed. There is no need to insult one another on a forum.
@CrotchBurn I do actually work from that London from time to time and I do manage it in a fairly non-clampit fashion. There's no need to be rude to everyone just because you've outed yourself as a muppet. [/quote]
My post was simplistic because I don't have time to explain all the possibilities that might have to be taken into account. It doesn't mean that I am simplistic (or as one poster suggested, have never been in the countryside - although I'm a landowner).
Using massive machinery and having a countryside empty of people is a new thing. There used to be far more people living and working in the countryside than there are now, and within living memory too. Thats why rights of way came into being.
Fencing paths doesnt make anything less enjoyable for me at all. I prefer it, as long as it isnt done in the way that one of the selfish farmers round here as done, which is to have diverted a public bridleway no less into the path of a shallow stream and fenced it with rigid, spiky barbed wire so its narrow and impassable even in summer.
The way I see it is that there is an issue, so all the name calling in the world isn't going to solve it (and I know you didn't do this OP but other posters have done) so you have to think of a better solution, and for me, fencing that right of way has taken any worry, confusion and problems away completely. No one strays from the footpath, everyone knows where to go. I even cut the grass in summer on it. I'm honestly rather proud of it. Unfortunately where my land ends, the footpath ends as the rest of it has been ploughed over and is currently under winter barley. Then theres another bit of footpath as described later on.
I don't really see how people out walking can act more responsibly in the circumstances shown in your photograph. I can see where the footpath is, to the left, and its clearly almost impossible to walk on at this time of year. But we are in the middle of an endless lockdown where the government is actually preventing people from driving to more suitable winter walking locations, and people are naturally going to exercise on what is available to them locally.
Its bloody terrible to start blaming people for merely trying to go for a walk. There is no footwear on earth that would help you walk on what you show in your photos. Your wellies would slip, even crampons would get covered in mud and be useless. Dubarries would disintegrate. Trail shoes would get covered in mud and your feet would resemble potatoes ready to be pulled.
I mentioned local authority subsidies in the context of that being done in other countries. Not the UK. Other countries. Because one poster also tried to mock me for saying I'd suggested that to you as well, when they knew fine well I hadn't. But just a realisation by government that people need areas in the countryside where they can go for a walk or a run, such as forest walks. I think the UK is heavily reliant on national parks for that, and there is a culture of driving quite far just to go for a walk.