To just ask you all to either wear some proper wellies and walk on the footpath, or stick to the sodding pavements

[flamingflamingos]

This is my field. It's winter wheat - it's been ploughed and pressed and drilled and rolled and just as it's starting to grow into what will be harvested for flour to produce bread, the general public have trampled it into the ground.

I understand the need to get outside, absolutely I support this country's network of footpaths - we have 6km of footpaths on this farm which are maintained so that everyone can enjoy the countryside.

But this is taking the piss. If you don't want to walk in the mud, don't walk in the countryside in January. Please, stop this. We are all accountable for how we behave.

@Xenia

If you quote me please use my words. I did not write "teach people a lesson". My sons are constantly complaining I drive far too slowly on all roads. We are talking about trespassers here and I am very careful of the people, smile at them all the time and clean up their dog poo, drugs stuff, gloves and all sorts. Sadly around here nothing is usually dropped with addresses or names on although when I was emptying the estate bins before we removed them all 2 years ago I did once find a bin full of photocopies of passports and that kind of thing - I don't know why the person did not just shred it at home. Obviously I made sure it was confidentially disposed of.

We had to go out to do a massive cleaning exercise today but I turned round on the way as the roads were so difficult. however the hills were too steep to drive home so we had to leave the car and walk.

And yes I agree with those above saying there are negatives to private roads (particularly ours which are not gated - I have never said they were anything special)

Attention to detail please Xenia - I did not quote you. I paraphrased you.

Sorry - didn't mean that to sound quite so abrupt! I don't take well to being corrected!

I thought you put quotes around it which does tend to mean you have quoted not paraphrased. I think it was another poster who wrote teach people a lesson. I didn't say that.

I suspect we all agree on the same things - some people are causing too much litter and damage to wildlife and farms during the pandemic.

@Honeyroar this is a good blog on it - www.savills.co.uk/blog/article/274033/rural-property/rights-of-way--why-landowners-need-a-proactive-approach.aspx

@MynephewR

OP that's awful!

Forgive me if I'm being dense, I've always lived in cities and know next to nothing about walking in rural areas, but why on earth do people choose to walk on a field rather than stick to footpaths? Surely the footpaths are there for a reason and you wouldn't want to be trespassing or walking through people's crops? I can't get my head around this. I love walking but it would never occur to me to walk on a field, especially when it's wet and muddy.

In the countryside there are footpaths or rights of way that are not paved. They often take you across fields, along the edges. These are getting muddier as more people are out walking and they are often the best route from one place to the next, keeping you off country roads. It appears that a few people are not aware of how to respect these rights of way unfortunately.

@VeniVidiWeeWee

Unfortunately OP, I suspect this isn't allowed now.

is that supposed to be funny?

Why didn't this guy just stick to the path? (best bit is from 1 minute onwards)

You have my sympathy OP - as a child I was trained to not walk on the crops - my kids have been too . The fields where we live are mostly like this - every path is churned up and in the surrounding woods lots of extra paths trodden down. In the summer there was rubbish everywhere too.

Thank you @flamingflamingos. I’ve had so many mountain bikers ignoring signs and continuing down our footpath this week. It’s muddy enough. I caught two, told them it was only a footpath and they couldn’t go down, they turned back, waited until I’d gone further away then turned back and continued down the footpath.