Posted on 09/21/2011 5:33:17 PM PDT by Charlespg
Ramblers and climbers have been banned from one of Dartmoor's most historic sites.
The beautiful Vixen Tor has been closed off for good after landowner Mary Alford won an eight-year battle to keep walkers off her land.
Her victory comes after a fight which included two planning inquiries and a series of mass trespasses to protest against the Tor's closure.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
And who gets to make that determination? If you allow them on your property and someone is hurt, who are they going to sue? If you allow them on your property, what's to stop them from coming right up to the house, or even inside if you're not home?
It seems to me that I've read some articles from Britain where someone has left their home to have it renovated or remodeled, or even just for a short three or four day trip, and have come back to find squatters living inside the house.
Private property is private property. No one has a right to be on my property unless I say so ... and the good thing about Texas is that, after dark, I can defend my property with lethal force if need be.
Lancer, the answer to this is right in the article and is the very heart of the land-owner's reason to close of the area.
"She said she wanted to seal off the area because she was worried about insurance claims."
She was obviously worried about climbers falling off the rock formation and then suing her for their injuries.
With respect, squatters rights and the right to roam are two entirely different matters.
” If you allow them on your property, what’s to stop them from coming right up to the house, or even inside if you’re not home?”
The fact that the people who own this land do not live there. Nobody lives there. It’s moorland. Or heathland. Empty and desolate. You are confusing landowners with homeowners.
The Right To Roam is one of the few pieces of government legislation I can get behind.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/664820.stm
A BBC news article from 11 years ago, contemporary to the passing of the act, detailing what it means.
Got it ... thanks.
But I must say that I still see private property as just that. If they'll let me buy property around Yellowstone or Yosemite and I want to build a fence or wall to keep people out, that should be my right.
Let the government .. either local, "state", or national .. buy the property and they can leave it as open as they want to.
I support the Civil War Preservation Society who buys tracts of land near Civil War battlesites to preserve them from further development or other uses of the property.
If the so-called Ramblers want to use the property, let them pay to support the purchase of the property for "rambling" use.
But, again, thanks for the link to the description of the Right to Roam legislation. Very enlightening.
If you fancy a little further reading, you should google the Kinder Scout mass trespass of 1932. A fascinating story, and one that led to the creation of Britain’s national parks in 1949.
It’s hard to believe for me, born much later, that before 1949 a pleasant stroll in the country would have left me breaking the law. Incredible really.
But, now, that still doesn't change the fact that, if the government feels that it's so important to give access to this land for wanderers and ramblers, let the government buy that land from the owners and open it up.
My guess is that they'd rather have the landowners maintain ownership so that they can keep hitting them with land taxes for it, while forcing them to allow access to their property. I guess if the government bought it, they would be the ones forced to maintain it and would either be spending money on it or requiring access fees from the wanderers and ramblers.
If I had the money, I would live to purchase a great acreage and then just let it go wild. But it would be mine and, if I wanted to bar access to it, I should be able to do so.
“live” = “love”
For the areas that became national parks, this is what has happened. They are all owned by a charitable organisation called the ‘National Trust’ which is non-governmental, not-for-profit and run largely on donations and volunteering. Which i’m sure you’ll agree is pretty great.
For this particular case, in Dartmoor national park (which by the way is absolutely incredible countryside), is a strange one. The land in question was sold to the lady in 2003. Ultimately I can’t argue with her decision to fence it off then. I would question why the National Trust felt the need to sell it to her in the first place though.
It’s also sad that this is due to fear litigation. I find that the saddest part of all.
Agreed to all ...
I did! :-)
It's things like this that make it obvious to me why we are over here and you are over there. A pleasant stroll in the country isn't a human right. But if you have no place of your own to stroll, what is so difficult about asking permission first? I hike a lot on other's land and I've always asked permission first. I've only been refused once. It's just common courtesy.
If the landowner is the Duke of Devonshire, and the land you want to walk on is the Derbyshire peak district, are you supposed to drive the 300 miles to ask?
As Woody Guthrie once sang; “this land is your land, this land is my land”. Which country was he from again?
Anyway, this is folly to hypothesise about because there are now well established rights of way and public footpaths (what you might call trails) criss-crossing the land, and have been for 60 years.
Well, they were such litterbugs...
“And I’ve closed the wood where the Fernworthy folk used to picnic. These infernal people seem to think that there are no rights of property, and that they can swarm where they like with their papers and their bottles.”
Woodie Guthrie was a flea-bitten hippie. I could not care less about his socialistic view of preperty rights. It doesn't comport with any laws over here, anyway. Most jurisdictions take a dim view of trespassing, and rights of way disputes require the courts. You can't just claim that you have a right of way that you've used for so-an-so number of years; you have to prove it. The landowner is permitted to rebut your claim, and in most states all he has to do is note the display of a "no trespassing" sign to win.
Aye, there's the rub. Like every scheme of the european socialists, this one will eventually cross the pond. Be wary. Right now the American left is largely urban and could not give a fig for rambles in the countryside. This will change in a hurry if the urban cores become too crowded or less liveable.
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