Environment
I have spent thirty years writing and talking about the British countryside. My publications on various topics are listed below. Their subject-matter ranges from the ways children use the countryside for play and the politics of the National Trust to policy proposals in fields as diverse as agriculture and rural housing.
Proposals I have advocated over the years include:
- A general right of public access to the countryside of the UK
- A right to swim in inland waters
- More public transport to enable town and city-dwellers to get into the heart of the countryside
- Better access to the countryside for people with disabilities
- General public access to private squares in cities
- The designation of protected areas in Scotland and Northern Ireland
- New national parks in lowland England
- A rural land-tax-and-grant system in which the profits from land use would go to fund the enhancement of landscape and wildlife attractions and the creation of more opportunities for informal outdoor recreation
- A new programme of social housing in rural areas
- Special protection for hedgerows
- The extension of the town and country planning system to embrace farming and forestry operations
- Special focus on the ‘edgeland’ landscape around towns and cities
- A reversal of the presumption in favour of building on brownfield sites rather than greenfield
- A new approach to green belt policy
- A new national forests authority
History and land buffs might be interested in the substantial sections of my books This Land is our Land and A Right to Roam which examine the background to the struggle over land rights in the UK; these include sections on England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland .
You can find more information about my books in the books section of this website.
At present only a few of my articles on environment topics are available online – the ones hyperlinked below. If you would like to read one which is absent, do get in touch and I will try to supply it.
The books, essays and articles about rural affairs which I have written over the years fall into four main subject categories:
Just click on the headers below to expand and contract for each subject
Public access and outdoor recreation
The power of those who own land to prevent others setting foot on it even when they would do no conceivable damage is an outrage which has fired much of my writing and campaigning from the days in the mid-1970s when I sought rural refreshment on the vast yet largely inaccessible Luton Hoo estate as a resident of Luton. more...
Since 1987 I have urged a general right of public access to the countryside throughout the UK – a right which would open up not only the rough, open moors and mountains which are the focus of the very limited right introduced in England and Wales in 2000 but also woodlands, parklands (including the private ones), river and lakesides, field edges and the countless private tracks and paths which wend their way through my native land but to which passage is denied if, as is usually the case, they are not public rights of way. My thinking has been informed by study of the way rights of access work in Germany , France , Denmark , Norway and Sweden , which I carried out through the generosity of the Nuffield Foundation; the Leverhulme Trust funded my research to establish how a right to roam could operate on the ground in the UK . I also support the introduction of a right to swim in inland waters and to this end contributed the foreword to Jean Perraton’s book on this subject in 2005.
Books
A Right to Roam (published in1999 by Oxford University Press). This book won the Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild’s Book of the Year Award in 2000 .
Chapters in Books
Recreation: The Key to the Survival of England 's Countryside
(Future Landscapes ed. M MacEwen, Chatto and Windus, 1976)
Robbers v. Revolutionaries: What the Battle for Access is really all about
(Rights of Way: Policy, Culture and Management ed. C Watkins, Cassell, 1998)
'Foreword' to Swimming against the Stream:
Reclaiming Lakes and Rivers for People to Enjoy by Perraton, J (Jon Carpenter, 2005)
Articles
‘Metropolitan Escape Routes’ (The London Journal , May 1979)
‘The People's Countryside’ (New Statesman, 23 April 1982)
‘Free the Countryside for the People’ (The Listener, 18 June 1987)
‘Turnstiles on the Trails’ (The Times, 4 February 1989)
‘The Playground: Square Bashing’ (The Times Educational Supplement, 10 March, 1989)
‘Give us back our Freedom to Roam where we Please’ (The Times, 26 May 1990)
‘The German Way ’ (Rambling Today, Winter 1991)
‘Walkers' Rights in Switzerland ’ (Rambling Today, Spring 1992)
‘Getting Back to the Land’ (The Times, 18 April 1992)
‘Access the Danish Way ’ (Rambling Today, Autumn 1992)
‘Northern Rights’ (Outdoors Illustrated, March 1993)
‘Rural Vision: Welcome Town Dwellers to our Villages’ (Rural Viewpoint, Spring 1994)
‘We Need to be Free to Walk’ (The Times, 20 February, 1999)
‘Historical Notes: Private Property is a Public Asset too’ (The Independent, 1 March, 1999)
‘Our Ramblers must have the Right to Roam’ (The Express, 9 March, 1999)
‘Scots Show the Way’ (The Guardian, 26 May, 1999)
‘Opinion: Fitting the Bill’ (Geographical, April, 2000)
‘First Shoots: Access: An English View’ (Reforesting Scotland , 24, Summer 2000)
‘Cross Current: Access to the Countryside’ (History Today, September, 2000)
‘Should we have a Right to Roam? Debate: Leading Conservationists Robin Page and Marion Shoard March to their Corners’ (The Ecologist, October, 2000)
‘Off the Track: Problems Looming for the Right to Roam’ (Managing the Challenge of Access: Proceedings from the 2000 Annual Conference of the Countryside Recreation Network , edited by Emma Barratt).
Landscape tastes
Why particular landscapes appeal to particular people has long been a subject that has fascinated me. In 1977 I wrote an essay about the peculiar appeal of moor and mountain landscapes on lengthy interviews with moorland enthusiasts who have been highly influential in shaping public policy on countryside conservation and access, such as Tom Stephenson and Kate Ashbrook. In my book The Theft of The Countryside, I sought to counter the dominance of moor and mountain in Britain's landscape protection system by urging the designation of a string of new national parks in lowland England. more...
More recently, I have explored the appeal as well as the distaste prompted by the landscape of the 'edgelands' - the netherworld neither urban nor rural which has taken over great swathes of land on the urban fringe. The rough, unkempt wasteland of the edgelands shares many of the characteristics of wild land in urban areas, and I have also written recently about urban wildscape. I am also interested in the ways in which landscapes of all types have served as a source of inspiration for artists, not least Dylan Thomas.
Chapters in Books
Why Landscapes are Harder to Protect than Buildings (Our Past before Us: Why do we Save it? eds. D Lowenthal and M Binney, Temple Smith, 1981)
The Lure of the Moors (Valued Environments eds. J Burgess and J Gold, Allen and Unwin, 1982)
Edgelands (Remaking the Landscape ed. J Jenkins, Profile Books, 2002) (Winner of the Outdoor Writers Guild’s Award of Excellence for the best one-off feature about the environment, 2003)
Articles
‘Children and the Countryside’ (The Planner, May 1979)
‘Now the Call of the Tame Demands to be Heard’ (The Times, 28 April 1990)
‘Stop Fencing in Nature’ (The Times, 23 March 1991)
‘On the Poets' Path’ (The Times, 2 November, 1993)
‘A Month in the Country: a Personal View’ (Country Living, October 1994)
‘ Britain's Changing Places’ (The Guardian, 2 November, 1994)
‘My Bay of Old Memories’ (Isle of Thanet Gazette, 27 January 1995)
‘Marion Shoard Never Travels Without’ (The Guardian, 7 October, 2000)
‘The Edgelands’ (Town and Country Planning, May, 2003)
‘A Call to Arms’ (Urban Wildscapes ed. A Jorgensen, Routledge, forthcoming)
‘On the Edge: What Future for the Urban Fringe?’ Countryside Voice, Summer 2004
‘The Strangest Town in Wales?’ Woman’s World 2008/9 (annual publication of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes
Also
With N. Gallent, J Andersson and R. Oades, The Urban Fringe – Policy, Regulation and Literature (Countryside Agency, July, 2004)
Land ownership
One thousand years of history have failed fundamentally to change the system of private land ownership established in Britain by William the Conqueror. Scratch the surface and you will find large, private estates continuing to dominate rural land ownership in many parts of Britain . What is more, when newcomers move into land ownership, they tend to adopt the attitudes towards their land developed on the large estates over many centuries. more...
In my book This Land is Our Land, I charted the many and often vicious struggles over land rights witnessed in Britain and also in other parts of the world. I also examined both the value and the limitations of the social contract over the countryside which grew up in Britain in the middle of the 20 th century, embodying public rights over common land, the town and country planning system and rights of way. I went on to advocate a new deal between landowners and landless. Key elements in this new contract were a general right of access on foot in the countryside except in areas where harm might be done or privacy unacceptably invaded, and a rural land tax-and-grant scheme. This aimed to generate cash for non-profitable rural activities such as conservation, landscape reconstitution and informal outdoor recreation provision by taxing land-based activities which make money or are considered undesirable. My proposal was modelled on the land taxation system advocated by the American 19th century radical Henry George.
Books
This Land is Our Land (1987, Grafton Books; 1997, A Gaia Classic: Gaia Books)
Articles
‘Who Owns the Countryside’ (New Society, 28 February 1986)
‘Pursuit of the Gentry’ ( The Times Higher Education Supplement, 7 August 1987)
‘Trust at Bay as Townsmen Close in (The Times, 13 December 1990)
‘Hunting the Hunters’ (The Times, 1 January, 1992)
Land use conflicts
In 1977 I left my job at the national office of the Council for the Protection of Rural England to take up a research fellowship from the Sidney Perry Foundation to examine the changes being wrought on England's countryside by modern farming and to explore the steps which might be taken to prevent further change. This research bore fruit in my book The Theft of The Countryside. more...
In This Land is Our Land I sought to address the fundamental conflict between what those who own land want from their possession and what the community as a whole seek from land. I have written many articles covering different aspects of this fundamental divide.
Books
The Theft of the Countryside (1980, Maurice Temple Smith)
This Land is Our Land (1987, Grafton Books; 1997, A Gaia Classic: Gaia Books)
Articles
Many, including…
‘Fields which Planners should Conquer’ (Forma, Vol. 4, No. 3, 1976)
‘The Cuts and the Countryside’ (Rucksack, Winter 1980)
‘A Plan to Save the Landscape’ (The Sunday Times, 18 January 1981
‘The Theft of the Countryside: A Reply to the Critics’ (The Countryman, Spring 1981)
‘Whose Countryside?’ (Summer School Report of Proceedings, Royal Town Planning Institute, 1981)
‘The People's Countryside’ (New Statesman, 23 April 1982)
‘Viewpoint: Avoiding Destruction’ (Footloose, No. 3, October 1982)
‘Getting the Best from our Growing Green Acres’ (The Guardian, 1 May 1987)
‘No Space for Parks: why Scotland is without National Parks’ (The Geographical Magazine, June 1987)
‘Free the Countryside for the People’ (The Listener, 18 June 1987)
A regular column entitled ‘Lie of the Land’, in the monthly magazine Environment Now (October 1987 to June 1990)
'Lie of the Land' (Green Belt - 1)
'Lie of the Land' (Green Belt - 2)
'Lie of the Land (Migrating Birds)
A regular column entitled ‘Country Matters’ in Today newspaper (1987 - 1988)
‘Ulster : the Need for Control’ (Landscape, February, 1988)
‘Scarred Slopes’ (Landscape, May 1988)
‘Parks with a Difference’ (The Times, 27 March 1989)
‘Farming for the Future’ (The Daily Telegraph, 10 June, 1989)
‘Forests: Profit with Pleasure’ (The Times, 17 June 1989)
‘Rape of the Countryside’ (The Times, 10 July 1989)
‘Cutting the Cost of Countryside Protection’ (The Times, 21 August 1989)
‘Maintaining the Distinction’ (Town and Country Planning, Vol. 58, No. 9, September 1989)
‘Clearing the Air with a Tax’ (The Times, 15 September 1989)
‘Why Agricultural Set-aside Should be Set Aside’ (The Times, 5 October 1989)
‘Patten is not quite as Green as he might’ Look (The Times, 1 November 1989)
‘Farming for the Future’ (The Daily Telegraph, 10 June 1989)
‘Too Precious, too Scottish to be left with the Scots’ (The Times, 31 June 1990)
‘How are we going to keep them down in the Village?’ (The Times, 25 August 1990)
‘Birds of Passage Betrayed by Brussels ’ (The Times, 29 September 1990)
‘Woodman, Spare us this Cash Demand’ (The Times, 16 February 1991)
‘Stop Fencing in Nature’ (The Times, 23 March 1991)
‘Who will best care for the Countryside?’ (The Times, 1 April, 1991)
‘Folly down on the Farm’ (The Guardian, 29 November 1991)
‘Hunting the Hunters’ (The Times , 1 January 1992)
'Getting Back to the Land’ (The Times, 18 April 1992)
'Hands off the British hedgerow' (The Times, 18 July 1992)
‘Law of the Land’ (The Guardian, 17 July, 1996)
‘Should Petrol Prices and Fuel Tax be Cut?’ The Independent on Sunday , 9 July, 2000 )
