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Episode 0576th September 202654:41
Right to Roam - Who Is the Countryside Actually For? With Jon Moses
Jon Moses lives five minutes from the River Monnow. He had lived beside it for twenty years and barely knew it, because almost none of it could legally be reached. In the first lockdown he pretended for a day that he lived in Scotland, and walked up it anyway. That walk is the whole argument of ...
Episode 057
Right to Roam - Who Is the Countryside Actually For? With Jon Moses
Chapters:17
0:000:00
About This Episode
Jon Moses lives five minutes from the River Monnow. He had lived beside it for twenty years and barely knew it, because almost none of it could legally be reached. In the first lockdown he pretended for a day that he lived in Scotland, and walked up it anyway.
That walk is the whole argument of this episode. Jon is co-director of the Right to Roam campaign and co-editor of Wild Service: Why Nature Needs You, and he joins Chloe and Tom to explain what the campaign is actually asking for: parity with Scotland, where a right of responsible access to land and water has been the default since 2003, rather than the roughly 8% of England that the Countryside and Rights of Way Act opened up for walking and climbing only.
Tom comes at it as the concerned landowner. Someone left a bag of poo in a bush on the project. Gates have been left open with livestock behind them. There are 100 kilogram pigs on the land that have chased people and ripped trousers, and a horse who has now tried to eat one of the pigs. So the conversation gets into the practical questions rather than the slogans: what happens to liability, how conservation land gets exempted, whether someone could camp next to the cabins, and what you do about the ten per cent of people who will never apply common sense.
Chloe brings the other side. Living in the Forest of Dean they could walk for three hours from the back door without crossing a road. From the Grange there is not a single usable footpath. And if the benefits to wellbeing are as large as the evidence suggests, is it fair to deny them to the many because of the few?
The bit that stays with you is Jon's shift from access for recreation to access for guardianship. On the River Wye, which for access purposes already works much like Scotland, it was local people who knew the river well who raised the alarm on algal blooms long before the regulators did. You look after what you know. You cannot know what you are not allowed to see.
After the interview, Chloe and Tom cover the four benefits they never got to, Rose's idea for a Right to Roam licence, and the full story of Lady the horse, two pigs, and a pair of Crocs.
Project update: 20 jars of pickled cucumbers and a market garden in its second summer
Community Day, Saturday 12 September, spaces still available
Jon Moses joins: Wild Service, the Monnow Valley and a lockdown trespass
What the campaign is actually asking for: parity with Scotland
Why Scotland got there and England and Wales did not: devolution, the Lords and the Clearances
The concerned landowner: poo in a bag, open gates and 100 kilogram pigs
How Scotland handles liability, livestock and exempting conservation land
Does everyone have common sense? Why the Wilder Wander is still not marketed
Chloe: no usable footpath from our land, and the ethical question
Could someone camp next to our cabins? Privacy, curtilage and commercial use
A feudal culture: shouting rights, DofE students and the meeting point on the land
What the campaign has achieved, and access for guardianship on the River Wye
How to support Right to Roam, and why this year matters
Chloe and Tom: the four benefits we never got to
The horse and pig story
Wrapping up
Facts and figures mentioned:
Related Wilder Podcast episodes:
Come and see it for yourself:Our next Community Day is Saturday 12 September, am to 4pm. Scything, seed distribution, apple and blackberry harvesting, a reset of the market garden, path upgrades and some foraging know-how, with a tour for anyone new to the project. It is free, there are still a few spaces, and there will be pickled cucumber. Book here: https://grangeproject.co.uk/events/september-community-day
That walk is the whole argument of this episode. Jon is co-director of the Right to Roam campaign and co-editor of Wild Service: Why Nature Needs You, and he joins Chloe and Tom to explain what the campaign is actually asking for: parity with Scotland, where a right of responsible access to land and water has been the default since 2003, rather than the roughly 8% of England that the Countryside and Rights of Way Act opened up for walking and climbing only.
Tom comes at it as the concerned landowner. Someone left a bag of poo in a bush on the project. Gates have been left open with livestock behind them. There are 100 kilogram pigs on the land that have chased people and ripped trousers, and a horse who has now tried to eat one of the pigs. So the conversation gets into the practical questions rather than the slogans: what happens to liability, how conservation land gets exempted, whether someone could camp next to the cabins, and what you do about the ten per cent of people who will never apply common sense.
Chloe brings the other side. Living in the Forest of Dean they could walk for three hours from the back door without crossing a road. From the Grange there is not a single usable footpath. And if the benefits to wellbeing are as large as the evidence suggests, is it fair to deny them to the many because of the few?
The bit that stays with you is Jon's shift from access for recreation to access for guardianship. On the River Wye, which for access purposes already works much like Scotland, it was local people who knew the river well who raised the alarm on algal blooms long before the regulators did. You look after what you know. You cannot know what you are not allowed to see.
After the interview, Chloe and Tom cover the four benefits they never got to, Rose's idea for a Right to Roam licence, and the full story of Lady the horse, two pigs, and a pair of Crocs.
Chapters
Welcome to episode 57, and a first for TomProject update: 20 jars of pickled cucumbers and a market garden in its second summer
Community Day, Saturday 12 September, spaces still available
Jon Moses joins: Wild Service, the Monnow Valley and a lockdown trespass
What the campaign is actually asking for: parity with Scotland
Why Scotland got there and England and Wales did not: devolution, the Lords and the Clearances
The concerned landowner: poo in a bag, open gates and 100 kilogram pigs
How Scotland handles liability, livestock and exempting conservation land
Does everyone have common sense? Why the Wilder Wander is still not marketed
Chloe: no usable footpath from our land, and the ethical question
Could someone camp next to our cabins? Privacy, curtilage and commercial use
A feudal culture: shouting rights, DofE students and the meeting point on the land
What the campaign has achieved, and access for guardianship on the River Wye
How to support Right to Roam, and why this year matters
Chloe and Tom: the four benefits we never got to
The horse and pig story
Wrapping up
About the guest
Jon Moses is co-director of the Right to Roam campaign, which is calling for a Right to Roam Act for England and Wales. He is a former teacher and historian, with a PhD from London, and looks at land access through the lens of land history. He co-edited Wild Service: Why Nature Needs You (Bloomsbury, 2024) with Nick Hayes, and writes the Substack The Fields Was Our Church. He lives in the Monnow Valley on the Welsh borders, and has been working alongside Chloe and Tom through the Welsh Rewilding Alliance over the past year.- Right to Roam:
- Jon's Substack:
Facts and figures mentioned:
- The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 created access land over mountain, moor, heath and down, covering roughly 8% of England, for walking and climbing only. No swimming, cycling or camping, with the exception of Dartmoor
- The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 established a default right of responsible access to land and water, with exceptions for privacy, growing crops and land management
- Scottish Land and Estates, the main landowner body in Scotland, opposed the Act at the time and now broadly regard it as a success
- A Right to Roam freedom of information request found the government was spending £2,000 on promoting the Countryside Code. After pressure that rose to around £150,000
- Only the Green Party currently has the full Scottish model as policy. Most progressive parties have accepted access to water as a next step
- The River Wye is one of very few rivers in England and Wales with statutory rights of navigation, so there is a public right to swim and paddle it
- The Grange Project market garden is around 2,000 square metres and a little over a year old. This summer produced roughly 20 jars of pickled cucumbers, 20 of preserves and 10 of jam, plus a freezer full
- Four slow worms seen on the project this year, up from none a year ago, plus grass snake sheds
- Lady is a 24 year old ex eventer, now on the project as a grazing herbivore. The pigs are unconvinced
Resources and links
mentioned:- Right to Roam campaign:
- Support the campaign (donate, join a local group):
- Right to Roam on Instagram:
- Right to Roam on Bluesky:
- Wild Service: Why Nature Needs You, edited by Nick Hayes and Jon Moses:
- Jon Moses on Substack, The Fields Was Our Church:
- Welsh Rewilding Alliance / Cynghrair Ailwylltio Cymru:
- Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000:
- Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003:
- Scottish Outdoor Access Code:
- The Countryside Code (England and Wales):
- Duke of Edinburgh's Award:
- Grange Project September Community Day, Saturday 12 September:
- Stay at the Grange Project:
Related Wilder Podcast episodes:
- Ep. 040: Rivers in Crisis with James Wallace, on the state of the Wye and who is fighting for it:
- Ep. 045: Community Land Stewardship with Chris Blake, on who land is for:
- Ep. 017: (re)Wild the Boar with Chantal Lyons, for the Forest of Dean boar that came up in this one:
Come and see it for yourself:Our next Community Day is Saturday 12 September, am to 4pm. Scything, seed distribution, apple and blackberry harvesting, a reset of the market garden, path upgrades and some foraging know-how, with a tour for anyone new to the project. It is free, there are still a few spaces, and there will be pickled cucumber. Book here: https://grangeproject.co.uk/events/september-community-day