This was the view of an editorial in The Times of 9 June 2008 which pointed out that people

were already legally able to walk along two-thirds of the English coast, so why not the remainder? Unlike the USA, for example, where although the love of liberty may stretch from sea to shining sea, it stops abruptly at the shoreline and where, in Florida for example, two-thirds of the coast is privately owned and public access prohibited. The opposite, almost exactly, of the situation in Great Britain. In Britain, the Crown Estate owns 55% of the coastline and has traditionally allowed citizens to wander, where it is safe to do so, along its riparian edge. When the plan was announced, a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said that managers of the Queen’s Sandringham Estate in Norfolk were willing to discuss proposals for the path. After the Crown, the second biggest Lumacaftor mouse controller of access to 1130 (11%) km of Britain’s coastline is the National Trust. This huge charity purchases, protects, manages, and opens up for public viewing, large swathes of Britain’s natural and cultural heritage. Interestingly, the Trust had reservations about opening up more of the country’s coastline to ramblers. One reason provided for such concern was that

the trust owns and manages Studland Bay, a natural beauty spot in Dorset. It is a very popular, typically English, tourist attraction. From its beach in the summer of 2004, however, 60 tonnes of litter was collected, accounting for 80% of staff time PF-01367338 supplier to physically pick it up. In light of this, it is little wonder that the Natural Trust was concerned about a coastal “right to roam” bill and in an editorial to Marine Pollution Bulletin on the subject at the time ( Morton, 2005), I echoed such a litter concern. Properly managed litter collection schemes, however, would seem able to alleviate such concerns especially since today the problem

is apparently a national rather than only Protirelin a beach one. As predicted, initial plans championed by Natural England, the government’s landscape advisory body, to give ramblers the right to enter the curtilage areas of about 4300 private homes and 700 estates overlooking English seas, as part of the proposed unbroken coastal footpath, were rejected just a month after the scheme was trumpeted. This modification to the plan was announced by the government of the time’s environment secretary, Hilary Benn – the official proponent of the scheme – and coincided with the occasion when he was found to have blocked access to the estuary frontage of his family’s farm in Essex. Clearly a case of ‘not in my ‘court’yard’. Notwithstanding, the course of the Marine and Coastal Access Bill continued and was due to have come into law in November 2009. At this time too, Natural England was due to start drawing up detailed plans for the coastal path in consultation with landowners.