Examination of Witnesses (Questions 209-219)
MR TOM
FRANKLIN AND
MS KATE
ASHBROOK
11 JUNE 2008
Q209 Chairman: Can I welcome, for our
first evidence session this afternoon, representatives of the
Ramblers' Association: Tom Franklin, their Chief Executive; and
Kate Ashbrook, their Chairman. At the outset, can I both thank
you for coming and for your succinct but, nonetheless, very helpful
written evidence. You have impeccable credentials as far as this
subject is concerned. Can I just start by really asking a question
of enquiry for my own information. During the course of looking
at the evidence for this, we have established that something like
70 per cent of the coastal margin is already available to walk
on. I suppose the interesting question is that I have not heard,
until the Government said they were going to put this proposal
in place, a lot of noise from people, saying, "But we would
like to get at the remaining 30 per cent". Did the Ramblers'
Association run any kind of campaign to achieve this because normally
you are not backwards, as an organisation, in coming forwards
in campaigning for greater access to the countryside, but I do
not, for example, recall, and forgive me if you sent the letter
and I did not read it, a letter of representation prior to the
announcement of this draft legislation from you, saying, "We
must have access to the remaining 30 per cent of the coast".
Ms Ashbrook: Certainly we have
been looking forward to access to the coast for some time. We
concentrated first on the mountain, moor, heath, down and common
land elements of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act, but we
were, I think, influential in securing section 3 in that Act which
made provision for access to the coast because, we felt, that
was the logical next step, and our members certainly have been
pressing us on that. We respond to calls from our members and
our members certainly were eager for this, and I am sorry if you
do not recall receiving a letter. I am sure you must have had
some, particularly as you are an MP for a coastal area, but we
have certainly been running a campaign and we saw the Government's
announcement as an important milestone in that campaign.
Q210 Chairman: Well, the legislation
on CROW was some time ago, so I have to put it down to sort of
failing memory, but an interesting question occurred to me, that,
as we have got access to 70 per cent, that must have been agreed
by virtue of a whole raft of reasons. In other words, we have
not had to legislate to get the 70 per cent that we have got.
Why is that?
Mr Franklin: We think part of
the problem is that that 70 per cent is broken up by the 30 per
cent where there is not a right and, as a result, what you have
is a patchwork quilt of access, so, even though there may be some
access on that 70 per cent, some of it is almost unusable because
of the fact that it is broken up. I think the point is that what
we are looking for is a right which goes right the way round the
coast and we think it is very unlikely, under some sort of voluntary
provision, for that to take place in any time probably in the
next 100 years or so at the rate that we are going, so that is
why we think that what is needed is a statutory right of access
then backed up by local decision-making by Natural England, looking
at the particular circumstances of each section of the coast.
Q211 David Lepper: Could I just ask
you how successful you feel the voluntary schemes already in place
have been to provide access to the coast? I am assuming that a
proportion of the 70 per cent is made up of those kinds of schemes,
and we have heard about them from other organisations we have
had before us. What is the Ramblers' view of the voluntary schemes
which have already helped to provide access?
Mr Franklin: I think in some places
they do work, but in other places they have got bogged down in
negotiations and sometimes they lack the flexibility that is needed
to take account of the changing circumstances on the coast, such
as erosion, so after long negotiations rights can be established,
but then they are not protected for the longer-term future as
well. What tends to happen is that you then end up with these
gaps in between, where you hit really a sort of impasse and you
do not go forward with those gaps, so they have achieved so much,
but we think that actually it is very unlikely that they are going
to achieve the goal of that continuous access round the coast.
Q212 Mr Gray: On this general principle,
can you explain what evidence there is that very many people want
to walk all the way round the coast? You have got 70 per cent.
All the polling evidence demonstrates that most people want to
walk for a while, half a mile or something from a car park on
a circular route back to the car park again, and that exists in
most places pretty well. Can you give us some kind of feel for
how many determined hikers there are that want these very long
walks? In that context, my own experience on holiday every year
for the last 20 years on the coastal path in Devon and Cornwall
is that actually remarkably few will use it, so what evidence
is there from the Ramblers' Association that really there is a
big demand for this long-distance coastal path all the way round?
Mr Franklin: Well, I think, firstly,
from polling that we have done, actually some 94 per cent of people
questioned thought that there should be a right of access to the
coast, and in work that Natural England have done, 53 per cent
of people, more than half, said that they wanted to visit the
coast more than they do at present and 37 per cent would actually
visit more if there was a continuous coastal path.
Q213 Mr Gray: That is 37 per cent
of what?
Mr Franklin: It is 37 per cent
in the poll that was conducted by Natural England.[5]
Q214 Mr Gray: We might be able to see
those very figures, but my question really was: what evidence
is there that there are an awful lot of people who want to do
these long walks? I dare say, depending on how you ask the question,
94 per cent or probably 100 per cent of people would say, "Oh
yes, we like the coast", and that is certainly true, but
that was not the question. The question was: what evidence is
there from the Ramblers' Association that there are people, determined
walkers, who want to go for these very long walks round the coast
and are presently being prevented from doing so?
Mr Franklin: Well, to be honest,
I do not think we are talking here just about people going for
very, very long walks all the way round the coast. What we are
talking about is opening up the coast for a large number of people
who, at the moment, do not know that there is that security of
access when they visit the coast, so we think that, by having
the continuous path, and there certainly will not be that many
people who want to walk all the way round the coast, what it will
do will be to create a fantastic opportunity.
Q215 Mr Gray: So you are not talking
about opening up the coast for people to walk on it, but what
you are saying is that people do not know at the moment that they
can go to the coast and, by having a continuous coast path, that
will make them aware, sitting in their bedsits in Bromley, that
in fact they can go to the coast? That seems rather odd. It is
a PR exercise, is it? It is a way of persuading people to go there?
There is nothing wrong with Bromley, I hasten to add!
Ms Ashbrook: It will give people
the certainty and confidence of what they can do. People want
to visit the coast, there is plenty of evidence of that, and,
if this comes to fruition, they will know, if they go to the coast,
they will be sure that there is a place that they can walk and
have the right to walk and that they will not be turned off.
Mr Gray: If that is the case, we heard
in the last session that the £50 million currently set aside
is a tiny amount of money by comparison with what the actual costs
will be, so we are talking probably about, I do not know, £100/200
million, we have been told.
Chairman: We are going to come on to
deal with the figures.
Q216 Mr Gray: If it is PR, if it
is a thing about making people confident that they can go for
a walk along the coast, is that not an awful lot of money to spend
on that kind of PR exercise?
Mr Franklin: We do not think it
is just PR. This is about ensuring that people have confidence,
when they visit the coast, that it will be open for them to be
able to access.
Q217 Mr Gray: Yes, that is PR, well,
not PR, but a sort of education exercise. You are saying, "We
are saying to people they must be aware that they can get to the
coast and, therefore, we're going to open up the whole coastline
in order to do that". That is quite a different argument
and quite a different purpose from the purpose I had understood
it to be, namely a lot of people wanting to go for long walks
round the coast. You are actually now saying that it is actually
about ordinary people going for short walks and at the moment
they do not realise they can go to the coast, but, by opening
up the entire coast, that will make their brains twig that they
can indeed go there. That is kind of really what you are saying,
is it not?
Mr Franklin: What it means is
that people, wherever they go on the coast, will have that access
and, if this legislation is not put in place, they will not have
that access and there will not be that security and, therefore,
they are less likely to do it.
Q218 Chairman: After the CROW Act
was passed, in terms of the opening up of the landscape which
had been previously closed, was there any confusion that you sensed
in the minds of the members of the public about where they could
actually go?
Ms Ashbrook: We are not aware
of any confusion. I think that the process of the Countryside
Agency and, in Wales, the Countryside Council for Wales, advertising
what was available, the books that were published, the maps, all
in all made it so that people were pretty clear about where they
could go.
Q219 Chairman: So, if that is the
case, and given, in terms of this legislation, that there is not
going to be a detailed mapping exercise, as such, and it is very
much down to localised information, are the public, do you think,
going to be entirely clear from the proposals that you have seen
so far about what is on offer?
Ms Ashbrook: I think they will
be because we have had an assurance, and you have had an assurance,
from Natural England about the way they envisage this developing
with the coastal trail being pretty obvious on the ground where
it goes. There is bound to be local information, and I am quite
sure the Ordnance Survey will want to be showing something on
its maps because, after all, it is an opportunity to produce new
maps and to sell more, so it is a marketing opportunity, if nothing
else, so we do not see a problem about this. The Ramblers' Association
will be very willing to help and, as with CROW, we did a lot of
publicity of the land that was available to the public.
Mr Franklin: It is a great opportunity,
for instance, to use the Internet to make it as easy as possible
for people to know what the opportunities are for coastal walks
in places that they may not have been in the past and so on, so
it is, I think, a fantastic opportunity to promote, but there
has to be that certainty that, when people visit, they will be
able to access it to get the full benefit of that.
5 Note by witness: The 37% figure is taken from work
undertaken for Natural England by Ipsos Mori and was published
as annex 2 of its advice to Government in 2007. "Indeed,
the representative survey assessed the potential impact of a continuous
coastal path which allows people to walk along the length of Britain's
coast. Overall, 37% claim this would make then visit the coast
more frequently, including 10% saying it would definitely
do so." Page 53 Annex 2 Natural England's advice to Government
2007. Back
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