Dave Windle
We are witnessing an ongoing erosion of our precious access rights as people, generally land owners, use language that implies that they are giving us something. They aren't. It's our right.
Nick Kempe has posted on this in his parkswatch website at Scotland has a right to roam not a "right of responsible access" - parkswatchscotland
At the end of last year, NEMT sent in the letter copied below to the National Access Forum to emphasise this point.
I am writing on behalf of the North East Mountain Trust (NEMT). You may know that NEMT is a voluntary body (Scottish Charity SCIO 008783) based in the Grampian area, representing hill-goers and those who enjoy visiting Scotland's finest natural heritage. NEMT membership, comprising both individual members and eleven local hillwalking and climbing clubs, totals about 1000 people.
Our members are hearing increasing examples of officials, including access officers, using the term "access taker" and are asking you to bring this to the Forum's attention.
The term "access taker" is pejorative and implies that people who are exercising their lawful access rights are somehow taking something (presumably from the land owner). We believe that this is incompatible with the Scottish Outdoor Access Code, which states that people responsibly exercising their rights do not owe the landowner anything. We are concerned about what might appear to be a linguistic nicety because "access taker" implies that people exercising their rights are somehow a problem and undeserving. This makes it easier to justify imposing restrictions on so-called "access takers".
We think that the NAF has a duty to discuss this issue and write to other public bodies to get them to stop using the term. In particular, the NAF needs to get the two National Park Authorities and all LAFs to stop using this term.
We look forward to your reply.
The letter was acknowledged, agreeing that there was an issue here, with the promise that it would be discussed at the meeting on 8th February. So far, the minutes of the meeting are not yet available to see what happened.
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