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Freedom to Roam in Scotland (2019)

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Re: Freedom to Roam in Scotland (2019)

#31

Post by 082349872349872 »

walthamstow wrote: post #25
rzwitserloot wrote: post #13

In the US it gets a little crazy: Land is separated out into square plots in quite a few places, especially the later-colonized west, think 'chessboard'. Companies buy all the white squares, leaving the black squares as public land. Which is now entirely inaccessible from anywhere except their private land. Lots of shady duderanch companies do this. There's an interesting legal dispute: Is crossing diagonally from on…

Something has always fascinated me about New World borders of different kinds being so square. Iowa is divided so neatly into 99 square counties (apart from the 99th, a rectangle with a funny story), Wyoming itself is literally a four-sided shape the size of Britain. This kind of thing is so mind-blowing to a European.

Yet somehow, despite the general tendency to squareness in political boundaries, electoral boundaries wind up with bizarre shapes...

Re: Freedom to Roam in Scotland (2019)

#33

Post by 082349872349872 »

walrus01 wrote: post #30
rzwitserloot wrote: post #13

In the US it gets a little crazy: Land is separated out into square plots in quite a few places, especially the later-colonized west, think 'chessboard'. Companies buy all the white squares, leaving the black squares as public land. Which is now entirely inaccessible from anywhere except their private land. Lots of shady duderanch companies do this. There's an interesting legal dispute: Is crossing diagonally from on…

The US western state concept of township, range and section for land survey and land title ownership is interesting. Dry land wheat farmers in some parts of WA own entire "sections". You can see them from space east of Wenatchee. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_(United_States_land_su...

I can't think of any examples where they'd show up in aerial photos, but the traces of original Spanish land grants in California are still clearly in the land registry, some still undivided.

Re: Freedom to Roam in Scotland (2019)

#34

Post by 082349872349872 »

Lio wrote: post #28
lmm wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no right to roam in England & Wales in general; there are specific rights of way, but most land is privately owned and trespassing on it is illegal.

No it isn’t. Trespassing in England and Wales is NOT illegal. If you’re asked to leave you have to but trespass itself is not a crime, it’s purely a civil matter. See the opening sentence from the CPS website: https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/trespass-and-nuisance-...

The point of right to roam is it isn't even a civil matter: one can roam private land, and can't be asked to leave solely on that basis.

Re: Freedom to Roam in Scotland (2019)

#35

Post by Glawen »

rzwitserloot wrote: post #13

In the US it gets a little crazy: Land is separated out into square plots in quite a few places, especially the later-colonized west, think 'chessboard'. Companies buy all the white squares, leaving the black squares as public land. Which is now entirely inaccessible from anywhere except their private land. Lots of shady duderanch companies do this. There's an interesting legal dispute: Is crossing diagonally from on…

When a property is landlocked like this, you should have a right of way through other people land, isn't it the case?

Re: Freedom to Roam in Scotland (2019)

#36

Post by walrus01 »

walthamstow wrote: post #25
rzwitserloot wrote: post #13

In the US it gets a little crazy: Land is separated out into square plots in quite a few places, especially the later-colonized west, think 'chessboard'. Companies buy all the white squares, leaving the black squares as public land. Which is now entirely inaccessible from anywhere except their private land. Lots of shady duderanch companies do this. There's an interesting legal dispute: Is crossing diagonally from on…

Something has always fascinated me about New World borders of different kinds being so square. Iowa is divided so neatly into 99 square counties (apart from the 99th, a rectangle with a funny story), Wyoming itself is literally a four-sided shape the size of Britain. This kind of thing is so mind-blowing to a European.

I think Europeans may not really get how big some of these places are until they experience it first hand - it can easily take 9 hours at freeway speed to drive from one corner of WA state to the other (Blaine to Walla Walla), and that's if you stick to the freeways and highest possible speed highways, keep cruise control on at 115-120 km/h wherever possible, and take an absolute bare minimum of stops for gas and restrooms only.

On the other hand just the province of British Columbia is the size of a good chunk of all of western Europe added together, in square km, and can take a very long time to get from Vancouver to somewhere in the far north (or a far off coastal location by combination of roads and ferries), due to its many mountain ranges and thousands of km of coastline.

Re: Freedom to Roam in Scotland (2019)

#37

Post by lebski88 »

haspok wrote: post #14
maccard wrote: post #11

I live in Scotland, but grew up in Ireland (where there is no such right). The value of this cannot be understated, IMO. It's not _just_ the right, the fact that it exists forces landowners to consider access routes. Very rarely have I found myself crossing fields full of livestock or someone's front garden, because in most places the landowners have maintained or signalled a preferred walking route. It really is won…

Interestingly, in Yorkshire, where there is the Rights of Way, which gives you the right to pass through private land on a specific path, I had the opposite experience. I can't count how many times I had to pass through ploughed fields, the arrow sign pointing roughly in the direction of the other side of the field, and in between there is... nothing. If it is a popular path then others might have created a faint foo…

It usually depends a lot on both the culture of the area and how often the paths are used. Where I am in Somerset there are an incredible number of paths, there's barely a field without a path through it. The routes are well marked and have good gates or styles for walkers. They are well used which helps keep the weeds down. Most of the Forrest also goes above the required footpaths and rights of way and keep a lot of permissive paths open too.

Land owners have a responsibility to keep the routes accessible and I think they are paid a small amount for it. Grants are available for gates etc. That said they are rough routes so are fairly muddy at this time of year. I love them and base most of my running around them.

Re: Freedom to Roam in Scotland (2019)

#38

Post by walrus01 »

Glawen wrote: post #35
rzwitserloot wrote: post #13

In the US it gets a little crazy: Land is separated out into square plots in quite a few places, especially the later-colonized west, think 'chessboard'. Companies buy all the white squares, leaving the black squares as public land. Which is now entirely inaccessible from anywhere except their private land. Lots of shady duderanch companies do this. There's an interesting legal dispute: Is crossing diagonally from on…

When a property is landlocked like this, you should have a right of way through other people land, isn't it the case?

Google "easement by necessity real estate law"

Re: Freedom to Roam in Scotland (2019)

#39

Post by lebski88 »

Lio wrote: post #26
_xnmw wrote: post #12

Last summer we hiked the Bruce Trail in Ontario, Canada, and discovered for myself that the local laws are NOT so free and permitting. You can't just set up camp anywhere you want, only on predefined campsites and trails. Without that freedom camping is -much- less fun.

In England we have this weird legal gray area around wild camping. It’s not strictly speaking legally protected but it’s not illegal either. Trespass in England is definitely not yet a crime[1]. Apart from a few specific areas like Dartmoor where wild camping is specifically legal it amounts to, you can camp where you like but you can’t damage anything doing so and if you get asked to leave you have to. If you don’t…

I would love the right to wild camp in England. That said I do wonder how well it would stand up to our much higher population density. The current system does kind of work despite its lack of rules or clarity. I think our trespass rules are a good compromise.

Re: Freedom to Roam in Scotland (2019)

#40

Post by Lio »

082349872349872 wrote: post #34
Lio wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn’t. Trespassing in England and Wales is NOT illegal. If you’re asked to leave you have to but trespass itself is not a crime, it’s purely a civil matter. See the opening sentence from the CPS website: https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/trespass-and-nuisance-...

The point of right to roam is it isn't even a civil matter: one can roam private land, and can't be asked to leave solely on that basis.

That’s true and it would be much better but we still have more rights than many people would tell you.

E.g. you have the right to “rest” on land adjacent to the side of a footpath or bridalway. Now the definition of “rest” is undefined because that’s how common law works.

So you can probably make the argument resting includes camping over night (when leaving no trace) until someone proves in court that it doesn’t.

Here’s another fun fact: you can also legally ride a bike on a “footpath” so long as you discount when you come to pedestrians. That one was clarified in Hansard but people blindly assume that they don’t have that right without checking.

The point is, things are usually legal unless there’s a law and legal precedent to say otherwise.

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