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.

@CrotchBurn

I just think some of the words used on here to describe people not from the countryside are very unfair. Cunts, selfish, entitled, arrogant.

If you are born and live in the city you have no idea about this stuff. It doesnt make you a twat it makes you uninformed. I am so sorry to hear about your crops but it just wouldnt occur to me that there would be crops there. I think better signposting is needed and it should be the council's responsibility to handle this.

It wouldn't occur to you that there would be crops. In a field. In this case, in an obviously ploughed field with shoots growing in uniform lines.

Where exactly do you think crops grow and what exactly do you think they look like?

A bit more joined up thinking needed, I feel.

This is grim

No I have never heard of the countryside code. However if I arrived in front of that field instinctively I would walk in the mud

@midgebabe

Incorrect

You can drive a short distance to access open countryside especially if that is safer for example safer than walking narrow busy street

Which is why her post says 'The UK government and the devolved administrations should change the Covid 19 restrictions accordingly'.

I too am sick of bad parking and inconsiderate great groups of townies churning up all the grass to socially distance and I'm not a farmer.

I think you can report ploughed up footpaths to the council

YANBU, walking on planted fields is never okay and couldn't be

Same problem with paths round here. One o the local farmers has put info on one of the village facebook groups explaining where the paths are and that the fields now have crops growing on them. And pointed out that they had turned a blind eye in previous lockdown to some of the informal footpath use (ie not on rights of way). I hope it makes a difference.

I am massively anti private land ownership.

Do you own your own home?

Some farmers plant over PRoW

This is pretty basic knowledge if you live near any fields, but then it is amazing how many people I see crossing a local field to get to a stream/ pretty spot rather than following the (quite scenic) path around the edge. Start with laminate signs showing the route of the footpath and something about "seedling crop stick to the designated footpath" and a post in your Facebook community asking people to be considerate. That will work for some, but not all.

I am with you on the inconsiderate behaviour . Just wish people would cut the keep of my land , town vs country , attitude. All that does is make people more likely to ignore any sense they might speak

Could you send pictures like this to your MP to encourage national public discussion and local council for any local action they can take? Also local and national media could take it up- you could approach them via any representative bodies you have locally? This is very topical so could be a good way to get the message out more widely.

As a volunteer for a P3 group, my DH spends many hours out in the local countryside trying to establish the routes of 'lost ' footpaths where they have been blocked, sometimes deliberately, by landowners. He also speaks to the landowners concerned about reinstating the paths and installing new stiles/kissing gates and gathers volunteers together into work parties to install them (a job which the landowners themselves should be doing). And I can't remember the last time I did a walk with DH on which we didn't stop and bang waymarker discs onto posts to point to the correct route.
On one 6 mile walk at the weekend we encountered a "ger orf my land" from a landowner who refuses to acknowledge the public footpath up their track, alongside multiple electric fences with no insulation or handles all in the space of a few metres. So whilst I'm all for educating the general public about the countryside code (which my DH also does as he runs a local walking group) I would love to see landowners educating each other in the duties of landowners in maintaining public rights of way. My DH's "shopping list " for work on paths that he's identified during the pandemic is growing ever longer and is going to require weeks of work from volunteers to put right because landowners are neglecting their duties.

"But where IS the footpath @flamingflamingos?

Your photo is very much like a field near me.
The footpath near me runs down the side of the hedge."

I'm guessing Op's footpath runs along the hedge.

Maybe some people have mistakenly thought that it goes up to the other hedge type things that are sprouting?

It looks as if it narrows back down further on, Op.

People haven't been turning vehicles in that first bit have they?

The pink is the footpath. Behind where the photo was taken is a hand gate, it's probably quite a poor photo to highlight but on the ground it is quite obvious (I think) that the footpath runs straight from the hand gate. But then I think it's obviously a crop and obvious not to walk through it, so..!

It isn't an isolated incident either, attached is a photo of a friend's farm near Liverpool.

This has never happened before lockdown. If we all start enjoying the countryside more off of the back of this pandemic, education on the countryside is SO important to prevent this mindless damage.

Yanbu.

Sadly I think there are enough idiots who cant recognise a clearly ploughed and tended field, that your only option to protect your crop is to demarcate the path by stringing up a fence. Even simple posts with a rope line etc.

@midgebabe

I am with you on the inconsiderate behaviour . Just wish people would cut the keep of my land , town vs country , attitude. All that does is make people more likely to ignore any sense they might speak

How do you suggest people talk to them? You've said telling them to learn the Countryside Code is pointless because they don't know they don't know it.

How do we talk to people who park on our verges and over our driveways and piss in our gardens and throw their litter into our hedgerows?

Because if there is a better way, I'm all ears.

Op, what are the tall things to the right of your path line?

And woe to the Liverpool photo
I meant wow but woe is an interesting mistype

[quote SoupDragon]**@flamingflamingose* supposed to leave an obvious path clear and not obstruct it if there is a public footpath. Most do around here

How wide does an 'obvious path' have to be? Wide enough to walk along or drive a lorry along?

The clue is in the name. It is a footpath, not a lorry path.

I think that the issue that the OP is drawing attention to is that when it is wet paths get muddy and rather than use the path that the OP had carefully made at the edge of her crop, walkers have trodden all over her crop in order not to get their feet dirty - hence her suggestion that they invest in wellies or other suitable footwear.

I know. I was responding to (and quoted) the poster who was trying to say that it's fine for a landowner to plant over a footpath that runs across a field and obstruct it. It isn't.[/quote]
soup I can't see any poster who's said obstruct the way? You have quoted me where I've said "sorry you do realise the farmer is more bothered about their income from the crop rather than ease of access for walkers? You don't have to walk there, they have to plant their crop!"
That's not suggesting obstruction!

Even if there might not seem to be an obvious crop, it's common sense/courtesy to stick close to the edge.

If the footpath is not fit for purpose, it should be shut.
Imagine trying to traverse that with a pram or wheelchair.

It does look very much like the edge of the path is marked by the small trees growing about 2m from the hedge (which I have marked with red). Are you saying the footpath is actually up to the yellow line?

I think the ambiguous width of the path, plus the sheer number of people who are walking, plus social distancing (so people are keeping 2m apart when they are passing) is causing the problem.

I would suggest you moved the young trees/ plants closer to the hedge and maybe tied some red tape onto some of them and put up a sign explaining about the crop, telling people where the path is and asking people to keep to the hedge.

Yes, there are lots of people who don’t know about farming but moaning about them won’t achieve anything. You need to take steps to help yourself, even if it is annoying.

I don't follow those saying I wouldn't know or you need to make the rules clearer.

Surely it's the responsibility of you to educate yourself before going somewhere. If you go abroad you learn the codes and customs beforehand yes? Or if arrested for an offence do people just say I didn't know there should be a sign.

I have never lived in a city. I wouldn't start marching around people's gardens saying but there's no sign, I gave a right to roam ( Scotland) but that's what people do here.

As an aside someone earlier said they always put dog in lead if sheep. That's good but Please also remember at lambing you should not be in the field with the sheep. Yes we have signs. We hill lamb outside and a dog will cause the sheep to lose lambs or indeed just leave them.

And I am not "get off my land" type farmer.

In the opening post I identified that I appreciate the importance of footpaths - when I was at uni they were invaluable for my mental health as someone who has always had the luxury of outside space. I would fight fiercely to protect our footpaths and it galls me when I see and hear of other landowners not maintaining it when we go to the lengths we do to ensure they are accessible.

But this isn't on. This land legally belongs to me. In no other industry is it acceptable to trash people's private property, their livelihood, and be so bloody dismissive. This is how I feed my family from week to week. And I'm growing food. Remember in this pandemic that everyone needs to eat. I'm growing food.