Hi folks,

The next access land walk is *Saturday 18th July *from Alfriston to
Polegate.

Meet 11.15 Brighton Station (inside) (Return ticket to Polegate)
11.32 to Polegate
12.17 bus from Polegate High Street to Alfriston, arrives 12.32.

Drivers - Willows car park, North Street, Alfriston 12.35. Map ref TQ
522032 (Bus terminates North Street)

Come and join us on a 5-6 mile walk on access land going east from
Alfriston. Take in the gorgeous views on a friendly ramble peppered with
information on natural history, settlements, geology and land issues.

Bring lunch and refreshments. Pub/cafe stop in Polegate.

Please email action4access@... with any queries or to be put on
the mailing list. More detail about the walk will go out to the mailing
list only.

Hope to see you on the Downs,
yours,
Jim, Kim, Brian, Dave

*What is Access Land? *
http://www.ramblers.org.uk/freedom/righttoroam/latestdevelopments.htm

Action for Access is a Brighton-based campaign group aiming to highlight
access and conservation issues on our local Downs. Our main focus is on
Access Land, the areas designated as ‘Open Country’ by the Countryside
Rights of Way Act 2000.

We argue that these places were restricted at the time, both in number and
in size, by landowners’ objections and by the opaque and closed process by
which Natural England chose them. In Brighton and Hove, for example, only
220 ha of land was designated Open Country, a mere 2.6% of Brighton’s local
authority area – and much of this was open to the public already!

What’s more, many of these places remain today practically inaccessible,
fenced in with barbed wire and lacking stiles or signs, leaving members of
the public to think that they may not walk there. Some are little more than
‘islands’ in the midst of swathes of private property, so that trespassing
is the only way to reach them. And still others are being allowed to ‘scrub
up’, making them not only utterly impenetrable but also potentially
disqualifying them as ‘Open Country’ in the future.
*ACTION FOR ACCESS*
*walking and working for a people's countryside*


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