John Brock
Local Footpath Secretary, The Ramblers’ Association
Walkers’ responsibilities:
The obvious responsibility is to leave the place as you find it. There’s the odd black sheep in every large group of people I suppose but on the whole I think the sort of person who enjoys walking is, to a greater of lesser extent, a fairly sensitive person and probably tends to do that in any case. There are specific things which are embodied in the countryside Code. Such as making sure you close gates and don’t damage the dry stone walls - which are a particular feature of this part of the country - and not trampling down growing crops and not scaring animals, and then obviously one thinks of dogs which can cause problems if they’re not properly controlled. That is a specific issue which many farmers will refer to when you ask them what their problems are. The solution seems fairly obvious - if you’re going to take a dog you need to keep it on a lead and keep it away from animals because even on leads, I think dogs can scare animals and cause problems. As I say, I think what it boils down to in the end is being sensitive to your environment and making sure that you leave it as you find it, and that being the case there shouldn’t be any problem and on the whole I don’t think there is any problem.
Walking in the Dales:
There has been a tradition, certainly within the Yorkshire Dales, of tolerance on the part of land owners and people have been able to wander fairly freely up on the moors but I suppose with increasing numbers of people interested in going to such places and also with increasing economic pressures arising from the need to look after shooting rights and that sort of thing - certainly in some parts land owners have become more protective and have been trying to restrict walkers to rights of way. In some places there aren’t rights of way and there are some places where walkers would like to be able to get to - the actual tops of hills and particular attractions like waterfalls and so on where, for historical reasons there may not be any rights of way - and those are the sorts of places where the Ramblers Association has taken the lead in pressing for rights of access.
