Success for right to roam campaigners

WHEN the “right to roam” was introduced in 2000, landowners were in uproar, enraged that walkers would be stomping all over their private property.

However, the past 15 years has shown ramblers are largely peaceful types trying to enjoy our country’s beautiful scenery with no intention of destroying what they see or invading privacy.

Yet for more than six years campaigners have been battling one of the last frontiers of access in Sussex.

A small field – measuring approximately 30 acres and set within the land of the Breaky Bottom vineyard near Lewes – is now finally open to the public.

Ramblers, the Open Spaces Society and Action for Access have been fighting to protect our rights to enjoy the South Down in all their glory uninhibited by fences and boundaries. Now they have almost completed that challenge.

Chris Smith, who has been leading the Open Spaces Society’s battle for Breaky Bottom, said: “After the Countryside and Rights of Way Act we and the ramblers have been campaigning for what’s known as the right to roam.

“People have the right to roam across unimproved downland. This is a victory we have been working towards for six years.”

He added: “There are now very few inaccessible sections of land left.

“This exclusion has to come up for review every five years so we fought it and won.”

However, he said there is still a small parcel of land at Breaky Bottom that is inaccessible.

He said: “It’s because it has a pit on it and is considered by the South Downs National Park to be unsafe. We will keep campaigning on this issue until the whole site is open. “We are investigating whether or not action can be taken under the Mines Act.

“We objected on the basis that a fence lies between this land and the quarry.

“If the quarry is unsafe then there should be a fence around it under the Mines Act.”

Chris Smith

Sussex ramblers previously won battle against billionaire tycoon

ONE of Sussex’s ramblers biggest victories for the right to roam over private land was against billionaire tycoon Nicholas van Hoogstraten.

In 1989 rambler Jack Dunn, 86, noticed a barn had been erected on an ancient footpath at Framfield.

The track was next to the estate where Nicholas Hoogstraten was building Hamilton Palace.

Over the years, more obstacles were installed. A gate, barbed wire and even a pile of fridges appeared to make the route impassable.

The Ramblers Association protested. Mr Hoogstraten described members as the “scum of the earth” and “the great unwashed”.

He insisted there was no right of way across his land, saying: “People should not go on to my land and if they do, from time to time, there may be accidents.”

The land was registered under the name Rarebargain Limited, of which Mr Hoogstraten was a director.

In January 2000, magistrates found Rarebargain guilty of illegally blocking the path and issued a £1,600 fine.

But under a legal loophole which has since been closed, magistrates’ courts had no power to enforce compliance or extract fines from companies who did not comply with orders to open rights of way.

The magistrates’ verdict was followed by an ignored court order in March 2001 to remove obstructions.

Three subsequent court judgements ordered their removal and imposed fines on Rarebargain, including the £15,000 maximum. The final sum of fines and costs was more than £100,000, but all orders were ignored.

When East Sussex County Council decided to divert the path in 2002, Kate Ashbrook of the Ramblers Association took it to a High Court Appeal. The saga cost the council more than £76,000, £26,000 in its own legal fees and £50,315 in costs to Mrs Ashbrook.

Mr Hoogstraten was jailed for ten years at the Old Bailey in 2002 for the manslaughter of Mohammed Raja.

The conviction was later quashed by the Court of Appeal, although a civil court claim for compensation found that Mr Hoogstraten was involved in the killing on the balance of probabilities.

On February 11, 2003, East Sussex County Council finally began clearing the path.

In 2012 the ramblers celebrated by creating a specific walk across Hoogstraten’s land with “Mr Van Hoogstraten’s path” – although the tycoon warned that armed guards would be patrolling the route.

Peter Hall

Landowners' comment

LANDOWNERS of the controversial plot at Breaky Bottom Christine and Peter Hall began planting vines in their cornfields in 1974.

In 1994 they bought 14 acres of the land, including the vineyards and buildings and still rent a further 15 acres to farm sheep.

Mr Hall said their 30-acre smallholding was “tiny in agricultural terms” and too small to be properly covered by the Rights to Roam legislation.

He said: “We welcome visitors by arrangement and we will continue to do so.

“We run a successful vineyard and manage to make a living from a small amount of land. We know that we live in a beautiful place and we like to share it. This is our home, our business and our life.

“We respect the natural downland pasture and have for years farmed the land at Breaky Bottom under the Environmentally Sensitive Area Scheme (ESA) and now under a Higher Level Stewardship agreement which prohibits the use of any fertiliser, weed killer or insecticide on the pasture.

“The farm was severely flooded in October 2000 caused by runoff from neighbouring fields.

“We lived in a caravan for over two years while our badly damaged home and business were being repaired.

“During this time the Countryside Agency were mapping land to include in the Countryside Rights of Way scheme.

“We were not consulted and only discovered too late that part of the smallholding had been included.

“Had we not been distracted by the floods we could have appealed within the allowed time and pointed out that the parcels of land were too small to be included under the CROW guidelines.

“On appeal the Planning Inspectorate decided that access should be restricted and that the chalk pit in one of our tenanted fields presented a danger to the public. Since 2005 the land has been restricted without any apparent problem and in 2010 Natural England carried out a public review, which generally supported the original decision but opened up a small part of a steep bank.

“Boundary fences keep sheep from straying and internal paddock divisions have recently been re-fenced, so a herd of Exmoor ponies can control invasive tor grass and prevent it from dominating fragile downland plants.”