"It will come as little surprise to those familiar with government spending programmes that the right to roam ended up costing almost double the original estimate. Yet those of us who love walking in the English countryside face unnecessary risks because ministers have slashed the budget which pays for warning signs and fences around hazards in the countryside. Only through persistent questioning did DEFRA admit to cutting this year's budget of £1.5 million to just £400,000 as part of wider cost pressures within the Department."
Mr Dunne added:
"Natural England need to learn the lessons from implementing the right to roam before they embark on opening up coastal paths. Risks to the public are likely to be greater on our coastline and it would be folly to create further open access without a clear and sufficient budget for safety and adequate local information provision."
The Countryside Rights of Way Act 2000 introduced a public right to walk across designated mountain, moor, heath, downs and registered common land in England. The Department had a Public Service Agreement target in 2001 to open up the new access land by the end of 2005 and it tasked the Countryside Agency with achieving this target. The project was completed two months ahead of schedule in October 2005, and 99% of the 865,000 hectares of such land was open to people without dogs by 1 November 2005.
Information on the extent to which the public are making use of the new right was not available at the time of the Committee's hearing in November 2006. Difficulties in obtaining up-to-date information on where to walk and on any restrictions on access (for example due to the lambing season), however, may have deterred people from visiting open access land. The Countryside Agency had set up a website as the primary source of information for the public on access land, but this had proved difficult and confusing to use. The provision of public transport links is also important, but 80% of access land is not accessible by public transport.
The majority of open access land is privately owned and includes a large number of Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Landowners are unclear about their legal liability for the safety of the public on their land. Any increase in people walking on access land could have a detrimental impact on the environment, flora and fauna. Livestock farmers had additional concerns over the bio-security implications in the event of an outbreak of an infectious animal disease. Natural England was committed to regular monitoring and will publish its first Annual Report on the status of open access land later this summer. On the day-to-day management of open access, temporary restrictions can be imposed to keep the public off specific areas of land, although the extent and timing of these restrictions are not always clear, which could increase the risk of non compliance with access requirements.
The implementation of the right to roam cost the Countryside Agency £24.6 million more than it had anticipated, with consequential knock-on impacts on other programmes which had to be deferred or terminated earlier than planned. The Countryside Agency did not have a thorough understanding of the work involved, and did not pilot test its proposed approach. Mapping and determining which land should be covered by the right of open access proved more expensive than expected and the Agency's board were not alerted to the increasing costs due to a lack of any financial reports on the project between October 2001 and April 2003.
Natural England will want to note the Committee's conclusions and recommendations on this project as they progress any plans to open up access to the coastline of England.
