Campaigners Set For South Downs "Mass Trespass"

A campaign group said it intends to be part of an organised "mass trespass" of some privately owned land in the South Downs near Brighton on Saturday (July 24).

Organisers from the groups "Landscapes of Freedom" and "Right To Roam" have invited members of the public to join them on the Downs, to walk to what campaigners have called "a location denied to us".

The expedition, which leaders pledged to be peaceful, is intended to include talks about botany, musical and poetical performances on a theme of nature, and litter-gathering.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Landscapes of Freedom said:

"We are an exciting new collective of people passionate about ensuring public access to the South Downs.

"We believe it is fundamentally wrong that 92% of all of England’s land and 97% of its waterways are off limits to the general public.

"We are campaigning for a Right to Roam so that people across the nation can have access to the countryside, just like in Scotland today."

Research shows that much of the South Downs, England's newest national park, is in private hands though a large proportion of it has been designated as "access land".

Under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, there is often a public right of access to land mapped as ‘open country’ (mountain, moor, heath and down) or registered common land. 

But the Friends of the South Downs, a charity not connected to the mass trespass, openly admitted in 2017:

"Many of the open access areas established in the South Downs are small, fragmented, and sometimes completely cut off from adjacent rights of way.

"Opportunities for self guided walks are not always obvious from the Ordnance Survey Explorer Maps which, although showing all areas where open access is permitted, give no indication of access points either into or within the parcels of access land."

In England law, trespass is almost never a criminal offence, though is actionable in a civil court on occasions when compensation could be payable.

Campaigners intend to meet at 1030am on July 24th, at the Waterhall Playing Fields near Mill Road in Brighton. 

They've requested that walkers do not bring dogs, and ask that if interactions occur with police, gamekeepers and landowners, members of the public should not engage, but allow observers to record anything that may happen. 

More Radio has approached the South Downs National Park Authority for comment.