Walking Class Hero: Coast for Most

Welcome to Walking Class Hero a regular blog about walking and the walking environment. Whether you like walking on your own, with friends or in an organised group this blog will cover it. It’ll embrace walking in cities and towns and villages. Walking in the countryside and along the coast and up hills and down dales. Walking through parks and by rivers and across heath and down and moor. It’ll comment on public rights of way, access to open country, permissive paths, public urban space and countryside protection. Basically if you can walk there it’ll be in this blog.

Coast for Most (Sunday 3 May 2009)

Did you know that, contrary to popular belief, there is no general right to walk along the coast and on beaches in England and Wales? I can feel your outrage seeping through the ether right now.

Well here at the Ramblers we’ve been working for years to change this and currently the Marine and Coastal Access Bill is passing through parliament. It takes some time this democratic process but once passed this bill will go a long way to rectifying the present unsatisfactory situation and begin the process of establishing a ‘coastal corridor’ all around England and Wales.

The coastal access campaign took me down to Weymouth for a spot of kite flying on the May Bank Holiday weekend. (It’s a tough job but somebody’s got to do it.) Now I can see how the link between kite flying and walking might seem tenuous but people see walking as one of the many activities they want to do when they’re ‘beside the seaside’. So this presented a great opportunity to spread our message amongst the seaside holidaying public. (Statistic alert – in a recent ICM poll more than 94% of the public wanted the legal right of access to our beautiful coast.) We also had some special ‘Coast for Most’ kites we wanted to fly.

Weymouth, of course, is on the South West Coast Path and here many visitors and locals are aghast that the rest of the country doesn’t have the same right of access as enjoyed in the south west. We really shouldn’t be this complacent though because many of our national trails and regional routes rely on permissive access and 10% of the 1014 km (630 miles) South West Coast Path is not legally secure.

There’s been a kite festival, excuse me, an international kite festival going on in Weymouth for 19 years. Altogether now (Dick van Dyke ‘cockernee’ accent optional):

‘Let’s go fly a kite,
Up to the highest height’

 With our little pitch on the prom we were able to chat to hundreds of passing visitors. The postcards explaining the campaign were nearly as popular as the free sticks of rock (no really they were) and we were once again overwhelmed with the near universal support this campaign has with the general public. This bank holiday Sunday the whole country seemed to have embraced Billy Bragg’s sentiment: 

‘So turn around and come on down
 The beach is free’

Well it may be free Bill, but here in Blighty you don’t necessarily have a legal right to get to it.

The audience participation bit (or what you can do to help)…

(i) Tell the Ramblers why you love the coast and why access to it is so important – the Ramblers can then use this feedback to demonstrate public support to government. Take part by following this link: http://tinyurl.com/al3f83

(ii) You can also ask your MP to support the Marine and Coastal Access Bill, which will create a legal route around the coast – click on this link: http://tinyurl.com/chcxfh

Useful links:
o The Ramblers     http://www.ramblers.org.uk/
o Claim the Coast   http://www.ramblers.org.uk/campaigns/Claim+the+Coast.htm
o Weymouth Kite Festival  http://www.thekitesociety.org.uk/Weymouth.htm

Listen to:
http://www.last.fm/music/Billy+Bragg/_/The+Beach+Is+Free

Watch this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7910721.stm