Would you walk across someone else's fields?

[hotpatooties1]

Just that really. I've been surprised since moving to a farm just how many people are willing to walk across other peoples land and allow their dogs to run all over it too. Some of the fields have just been sewn and are sprayed with fertiliser regularly..they don't seem to care.

I wouldn't do it, was brought up on and around farms and was told not to walk over other peoples land. I understand the right to roam and that lawfully, they are doing nothing wrong. It just doesn't seem right.

This morning I drove past one of our fields that is gated. A woman had gone into it with her dog, let it off lead and had a kid on a bike in it..AIBU? Would you do that?

Only fields where there's a marked public footpath over it.

I only go down footpaths which are marked as such. Farmers keep all kids of stuff in fields that’s dangerous and expensive!

My issue is that most people aren't using the land to enjoy the countryside, it's not a footpath, it doesn't go anywhere. We have woods aswell, had people take cars up there past a gate, park up and have bbq's during lockdown, leaving all their shite behind them.

@OolieMacdoolie

Yes, I would. I wouldn’t walk over crops and wouldn’t let a dog off the lead, but I would otherwise use the space.

We have the right to roam, and sometimes it’s not practical to avoid a particular field. I’m respectful of the space though - leave gates as I find them, avoid crops, steer clear of animals etc. I don’t feel bad about it tbh.

Are you happy to have people walk over your garden?

We have the 'Right to Roam' over public footpaths. Not any old field

I wouldn’t but I have a friend who views all open land as some sort of public right of way I don’t walk with her anymore as, as someone who has grown up around farms and stable yards, it pisses me right off when people think like this.

It doesn’t surprise me that there are more people who think like this, over the years we’ve had people wandering through fields leaving gates open and letting out horses as they go (“Oh but the grass is longer in the other fields and he looked sad” - he’s in the less grassy field because HE’S ON A DIET), people opening gates and leaving them open so they didn’t have climb a muddy stile and get their trainers dirty, and people using the entire field to throw balls for their dog, including one man who brought a cricket bat and nearly hit several horses with the tennis balls he was blatting about all over the place. With the latter, the land owners eventually fenced off the footpath with post and rail fencing and stock netting. Boy, you ought to have heard the complaints from people who were stopped from doing what they weren’t allowed to do in the first place!

@GrannyWeatherwaxsHatpin

With the latter, the land owners eventually fenced off the footpath with post and rail fencing and stock netting. Boy, you ought to have heard the complaints from people who were stopped from doing what they weren’t allowed to do in the first place!

That sounds very similar to this story, but the details are different so I presume it is a different story.

Somerset's iron curtain: Farmer builds 300ft 'maximum security' fence around public footpath to stop dog-walkers straying onto his land

It's interesting that landowners in some areas are starting to fence off rights of way in this manner.

I've read that a number of other landowners are doing exactly the same thing with post and rail fencing, for example

here

and here

No, it wasn't in Somerset but was a similar arrangement except that it was a standard post and rail fence and the mesh stopped dogs getting under the rails or people climbing over. Unfortunately a minority spoil it for others, and I'd put good money on it being the minority who whinge about it "not being fair".

@OolieMacdoolie

There's 19.252 million acres in Scotland for 6 million people

There's 32.193 million acres in England for nearly 56 million people

5.123 million acres in wales for 3 million people

That's why right to roam works in Scotland but not in other parts of the UK.

Obviously it's a crude calculation as people don't just walk in the part of the UK they reside in. But as a general rule of thumb I can see why fewer people per acre is probably going to cause less of a problem.

@Nanny0gg I live in Scotland, different laws here.

The garden comparison isn’t really a valid one. Me walking across one of the hundreds of enormous fields surrounding my house is very obviously not equivalent to someone parking themselves in my 10msq garden.

[quote Scrowy]@OolieMacdoolie

There's 19.252 million acres in Scotland for 6 million people

There's 32.193 million acres in England for nearly 56 million people

5.123 million acres in wales for 3 million people

That's why right to roam works in Scotland but not in other parts of the UK.

Obviously it's a crude calculation as people don't just walk in the part of the UK they reside in. But as a general rule of thumb I can see why fewer people per acre is probably going to cause less of a problem.[/quote]
It’s a fair point - as I mentioned upthread, I don’t really know enough about how land ownership and usage work in England to make a strong argument for how things should be in a practical sense. But from a moral and ethical standpoint I really feel strongly that the right to roam should be defended as an inalienable right of a country’s inhabitants.

The garden comparison isn’t really a valid one. Me walking across one of the hundreds of enormous fields surrounding my house is very obviously not equivalent to someone parking themselves in my 10msq garden.

Okay say you have an allotment, would you be happy with people walking over it? Essentially that is what people are doing if they are walking over crops and letting their dogs on their aswell. That's our livelihood and our produce..

I understand that not everyone does cause damage but it just shouldn't be done. I don't think it's okay that I'm walking my dog on our land and I'm being approached by other dogs who have ran across two fields of barley and their owners letting their other ones all over the other crops, too. And honestly, for all the woman with the dog and child on the bike knew, I could've been returning to that field with my horse or away to put cattle into it.

@hotpatooties1

The garden comparison isn’t really a valid one. Me walking across one of the hundreds of enormous fields surrounding my house is very obviously not equivalent to someone parking themselves in my 10msq garden.

Okay say you have an allotment, would you be happy with people walking over it? Essentially that is what people are doing if they are walking over crops and letting their dogs on their aswell. That's our livelihood and our produce..

I understand that not everyone does cause damage but it just shouldn't be done. I don't think it's okay that I'm walking my dog on our land and I'm being approached by other dogs who have ran across two fields of barley and their owners letting their other ones all over the other crops, too. And honestly, for all the woman with the dog and child on the bike knew, I could've been returning to that field with my horse or away to put cattle into it.

I wouldn’t mind people cutting through an allotment if I had one. I would mind people standing on plants, just like I think it’s wrong for people to behave in a way which damages crops. This isn’t really an issue with right to roam in Scotland - as I said it has been going on for 15 years and the Scottish farming industry managed to soldier on.

People who aren’t respectful of the land are a problem everywhere. I’ve had problems with people feeding my horses so I know how infuriating it can be. But it is a minority who don’t behave well, and I don’t think the behaviour of a few justifies depriving everyone of the right to use land.

How do you expect people to know?
I don't blame countryfolk for getting annoyed though, I get annoyed when someone from the countryside holds up the bus when travelling to town because they have to ask the driver "how much to xxx street" and the driver is like ... uh... ITS ALL THE SAME FARE PRICE and then they want the driver to tell them when to get off and then they start chatting to every one on the bus like 👍 🙄 we don't interact in the city. If you want city folk to respect your rules then you have to respect ours-
•Don't make eyecontact with anyone
• Don't chat with bus drivers or train guys
•Dont try to hand the bus driver your change- they have a box because they don't want to touch you. Infact they have an app because they don't want your change!
•Stop using the train for the request stops, you add like a year to everyone's journey and you are just one person!
•Dont ask if we are local (what?)
•Never ever get mad at me for going to work or school or college because I got in the way of your photo, and your photo👉 and your photo☝and your photo 👈and your photo🖕
•don't try to use your oyster card outside of London
• And please god don't try to bring your dog into our pubs. (what the actual xxxx) City people don't dine with their dogs.

I would only do it if I was out hiking and missed the path or got lost. Even then I’d keep to the edge of the field.

@booksandnooks you are joking, right?

Just because I live on a farm it does not mean I am a million miles from anywhere considered a 'town' and am therefore unable to take a train or bus anywhere.

• I don't deliberately stare at 'city folk'
• I don't hold lengthy conversations with bus and train drivers - who ever sees the train driver anyway?
• I don't generally go around asking people where they live
• I don't tend to get 'touristy' in cities and take photos unless on holiday and am somewhere particularly interesting..
• dugs in pubs are fine, if they are welcome and well behaved.

I expect people to know because they should be able to identify a piece of land with a clear fence and fucking gate around it.

Contrary to (your) popular belief we aren't some sort of Sawney Bean hill clan - never travelled away from our land type people.

@booksandnooks and how do you know the person holding up the bus is from the countryside? Do they smell like dung and have straw in their hair?

It's got a lot worse since lockdown, undoubtedly. The field I get my hay cut from has had more litter and dog poo in it in the last 12 months than it ever did in total the previous five years when it was just the regulars walking it. We didn't cut it last year for various reasons and I'm glad, I'd have been worried about contamination.

I have gone into a random field once in my life and that was when I could see there were cattle with young blocking the exit of the field with the footpath in and I had my dog with me. But I'd like to think anyone who I might have bumped into would have let me off that one once I'd explained!

People don't even know which side of the lanes to walk on for their own safety.

Even with the 'right to roam' (Land Reform Act) in Scotland, you are still expected to act responsibly. The information leaflet by Access to the Countryside states - 'Keep to unsown ground, field edges or
paths.'

I'm not a farmer but live very rurally and wouldn't dream of walking across a field - we always skirt the edges or use a path (if there is one).

A pp mentioned people visiting not knowing the rules - it's expected to an extent that you acquaint yourself with the rules before you go. I went to an inner city school and remember learning the 'countryside rules' at a young age.

Yanbu, but then again I'm obviously a selfish toffee nosed horsey bitch because I seem to think my horses and land aren't a public commodity for people to do as they please with. I'm also only arsed about my neighbours land and livestock because apparently I want it clear for that well known summer pastime, common to all rural dwellers and horse owners, of fox hunting through cows and calves.

It's not really a rural vs urban issue, more decent human being vs entitled twat one

Your dog is as welcome in our pubs as ours are on your field

I was joking but now I think you're a tosser

Right to roam is not as clear cut as some would make out. I’m hugely in favour of it BUT some people utterly take the piss and ruin things for everyone else. It’s all well and good to talk about the iniquities of the past, but the notion that people, several generations later, shouldn’t really own what they’ve bought is a leap: I’m not including common grazings & areas / activities where the Crofting Act applies, I just mean the notion that because “it’s rural” anyone and everyone can do whatever they want whenever they want as often as they want. It’s not the majority of quiet, normal people who want to visit wild places, it’s the total fuckwits who think they should have rights over land worked by others.

In Scotland cultivated ground (including gardens) is excluded. Which sounds sensible, but surprisingly few people respect that.
Then you have numpties who think “wild camping” means pitching a tent at midday within a few metres of their car and staying for the weekend, even if it’s close beside someone’s house, spending every evening getting pissed and swearing whilst the kids wake up and need rescued from the loch whilst parents sleep off the hangover.

Then what counts as “cultivated”? Farmland... including hill sheep? Managed grouse moors? Forestry? Deer stalking? How much “garden” is allowed - is it square metres or acres?

We’re on the edge of a small town with lots of privately owned land very close. Have seen local land referred to as ‘the dog walking field’ etc on the local Facebook. Even local friends who are very aware don’t realise that all the land is private property. Annoying when it ends up covered in litter, nitrous oxide cylinders, dog poo bags, bike ramps (built by the tresspassers), “wild campers” mess etc. Honestly don’t think most people realise that it’s private farm land and not a public park.

I do it sometimes. I wouldn’t go in a field if there were animals or crops other than grass or if I had to climb over a gate to get in. But sometimes I let my dog run away from the path if Theres a path going through the field and sometimes take shortcuts around edges of fields or through tractor tracks. I don’t feel bad about it tbh. I doubt it causes noticeable damage and I don’t leave litter or poo. I can’t exercise my dog around other dogs so need quiet places. I think the comparisons to gardens are ridiculous. Gardens are smaller and right by someone’s house. The field owner isn’t anywhere near 99% of the time so why not enjoy the countryside even if it annoys the rich Tory who happens to own some of the fields.

No I will cross using public footpaths but even then sometimes I’m paranoid about being perceived to have strayed off the path

The field owner isn’t anywhere near 99% of the time so why not enjoy the countryside even if it annoys the rich Tory who happens to own some of the fields.

Are you saying that all farmers are rich tories? We are the field owners, we live right next to our fields, I can see the dogs and people playing in them from my house 🤦🏼‍♀️ if you or anyone else need somewhere to exercise a dog in open space that can't be around others then go to a dog park.