As I have been exploring a single map over lockdown, one of my constant frustrations has been how little of the land I am legally allowed access to. It is ridiculous that once upon a time somebody said, ‘This wood is now mine. This river and this hillside too. I am claiming it. It is mine. You are not allowed to come here any more.’ And yet that is the situation faced by anyone in England who is not a landowner, but wishes to enjoy the land. Half of England is ‘owned’ by less than 1% of the population. Allemansrätten is the right, in much of Scandinavia, for every man and woman to roam the countryside. But with rights must come responsibilities. For as well as being frustrated by how restricted I am in my own country, I also sympathise with farmers and landowners who endure littering, fly-tipping, dogs chasing sheep and so on.

To mark the 89th anniversary of the Kinder Trespass, Right to Roam are asking people to go on a trespass walk, swim or paddle on a local area out of bounds to public access. They say, ‘We want to highlight the absolute necessity for greater access to nature, not just for our public health, but for the health of the environment. Whilst the Kinder Trespass contributed to the current CRoW act, which allows us access to 8% of English land, we want to highlight how much of this open access land is inaccessible to the vast majority of the public – that for a registrable effect on our nation’s health, we must be allowed to access nature on a regular basis, the open spaces close to our homes – in other words, we need to bring CRoW to our doorsteps.

So we are asking you to go for a walk, a swim or a paddle in a local area. You might want to target an area that has recently been fenced off, a blocked right of way, new building developments that threaten forested or arable land, or swim in a river that for as long as you’ve known it has been reserved for the exclusive use of fishing clubs. Wherever you chose, we ask that you follow the Scottish outdoor access code and read our Trespasser’s guide for a quick insight on what to do if challenged. If climbing the wall, or hopping the fence, seems a bit too confrontational, then use a right of way. The priority for this action is to  put up our new Everybody Welcome signs, and to deliver our letter to the land.

We have a press release we’d like you to send to your local paper, we have a letter to the landowner we’d like you to deliver (not to the house, but somewhere on the land) and we have a new sign we’d like you to stick over the current No Entry or Private Property signs, saying Everybody Welcome. The main aim of this action is to get our letter read by landowners (and the media), and to swarm Twitter with photos of the new sign (use the hashtag #EVERYONEWELCOMEHERE).’