Not cycling related but just a local landowner and his lackeys being deliberately awkward. Here’s the background…

We moved into a small new build development last year. 1 street, about 40 houses. At the back of the development is some woodland that’s owned by a very wealthy local guy. Since buying the woodland the guy has setup a community trust to look after the woods and they have a bunch of volunteers that do various bits of maintenance around the woods. The woods in total are about 1km squared. From what we’ve been told, the woods people do not like the fact houses were built next door.

The owner and volunteers consider this to be “private woodland” (their own words) despite them being on the edge of large town and in Scotland where such things don’t exist as the access laws allow us to responsibly access such land. They have a real hatred of dogs and have loads of signs up saying dogs must be on leads. Lets not get into an argument about dogs, but the Scottish access laws allow dogs off the lead if they’re under close control. These volunteers take a zero tolerance attitude to all dogs. My neighbour encountered an old couple with a very small dog in tears one day after one of the volunteers got highly aggressive, screaming at them and threatened that he’d put their dog on a lead and take it off them. This is not an isolated incident and I’m mentioning it more to give a picture of the people involved.

They also like to close the woods off to run private events that they charge for. None of the notices that are required to exempt land from access in the Scottish LRA are ever displayed. I can only assume as they have this “private woodland” mentality they think they can stop people accessing it whenever they want.

Here’s the latest saga I could use some thoughts on.

The land our houses are built on was formerly a quarry next to the woods. From what I can see on old maps, this land and the woods has lain out of use for a long time, and over that time a series of unofficial paths developed. In the woods themselves, the volunteers have formalised some of those paths and surfaced them.

The builders of our development have just built a short, well surfaced and tidy path that connected the street to edge of the woods. From what I can tell, this is essentially reinstating a small portion of one of the old unofficial paths that was partially lost when the houses were built. At the end of the path they built was a very small area clear of plants, trees etc and there was maybe a 6ft gap between the end of new path and one of the formalised paths in the woods.

The woods people have taken huge offense to this, and on that small open space between the new path and the path in the woods, they planted a bunch of large thorny bushes to block access. Stupidly, a resident allegedly ripped them out which has obviously worsened the situation. I just went for a walk at lunchtime and discovered a large metal fence has been placed at the end of the new path to block access and talking to one of the site staff, apparently some “heritage” group has got involved and ruled that the woods cannot be accessed from this point and the new path has to be removed.

Clearly this is the woods people throwing their toys out the pram. The new path is entirely on the development land and they’ve decided to block access out of pettiness. Clearly someone ripping the stuff they planted out has made the situation far worse.

It’s still possible to access the woods, it just involves a slightly longer walk along a busyish road, but this path gave kids and adults nice safe direct access to the woods. There are also a few other points where the woods can be accessed unofficially on undeveloped paths, though not from our street.

What are our options here? The builders obviously wont care, and the owner is a bit of a local celebrity with probably a lot of clout. I’ve had a look on the Scottish outdoor access site and annoyingly the position of access officer for my area is currently vacant. Does this even count as blocking access if the access wasn’t officially there to begin with?

Local Access Officer will help here such a bummer there is not one. Have you checked with LA about the access officer direct – they may have recruited.

So many variables, not known details about the site (such as historic site, any protected or vulnerable biodiversity etc).

Seems like grown up conversations are needed?

Remove the fence one night?

Remove the fence one night

From what the site worker said, the new built path has to be ripped out which will leave a muddy slope rather than a nice gravel path, so even without the fence, it’s not really easy access

Where are you?

Independent of whether you have a local access officer you will have a Local Access Forum that may be able to help.

Development builders do not build paths unless they are told – generally under a Section 75 for the planning permission.

Development builders do not build paths unless they are told – generally under a Section 75 for the planning permission.

The path is on the plans for the development. It was actually a key factor in us moving here as it cuts about 10 minutes off the walk to the local train station

Where are you?

South Lanarkshire

I would look at the planning permission
files and conditions for your development on the council website. If the builders built the path then I’d expect that something was said at the time about maintaining access to the woods. If so there will be a record of those discussions either on the file or if you speak to the development management officer who handled the PP. If so planning enforcement may help.

It’s hard to give advice with so many unknowns of the situation and history, but it sounds like it should fall under the general access rights of SOAC and the LRA, and they cannot just close the land for events without going through certain processes and consultations. If you feel that it might be a public right of way that been obstructed contact Scotways.

A shame there’s no OAO in place to help.

The path is on the plans for the development. It was actually a key factor in us moving

Definitely contact Planning then to query the blocking of it.

They held a Halloween event. Sold thousands of tickets. Erected fences blocking access completely. They were up for 2 days after the event. From my time racing bikes, I’m well aware of the process and signage needed to temporarily exempt land from public access. They don’t bother and just stick these fences up

How did the land become private in the first place? Can you just challenge the owner to a duel?

That looks easily moved…(which obviously doesn’t help with the original question!)

Relevant example within link….

Right to roam

As usual, its likely one of those which would need to be tested in court if the owner is difficult. But given theres a bridge there it looks pretty ‘cut and dried’ that access has (had) been established. Maybe not by right of way – however ROW’s have been superceeded by Land Reform Act (which does have caveats for access)

“Sold thousands of tickets. Erected fences blocking access completely”
They need a Local Authority Suspension, valid for up to 5 days.

In the absence of a access officer I would contact your local councilor.
You will not be the only one complaining and they may be progressing it (if not, tell them to),

And out of interest, who actually is the celebrity walloper in question?

How did the land become private in the first place?

That’s irrelevant. All land is essentially private (i.e. owned by someone) but there are generally public rights across it in Scotland, unless access rights are excluded for various reasons as per the Land Reform Act (2003) Scotland. Different in England and Wales.

bob, i walk in there every few days with the dog (we are in Hairmyres). Interestingly they have recently chained off the 2 access gates on the path at the hospital/station side and now all access and egress is via the main entrance which is a PITA.

I noticed that new path at the bottom of the hill in from your development the other week and wondered how it will work with summer evenings, kids, dogs etc.

I let our dog off the lead in the Woodlands once away from the road and when safe to do so, so essentially outwith bird breeding season etc. He has decent recall but if he sees a squirrel he’s off, and IMO that is fine, as the squirrel will run up a tree ! I haven’t been challenged on it yet but know many folks have. If/when challenged their tactic has been to take pics of the ‘volunteers’ and to put it on FB pages, tag on the Coppertrees insta page etc etc. The landowner has so many fingers in other pies such as that food place that he seems to be aware of issues and will hopefully shift his view. So many of his patrons in his various establishments want to use the Woodlands for dogs and other recreations, and he’s very much a businessman.

Oh and welcome to town, nobeer will be along in a moment to berate you for moving up here 🙂

Some doggy pics from Sunday for cuteness 🤪

can you check if there are core paths across the land? if they’re well established and have been there a while they may have been recorded as part of SLC core paths plan. I think that blocking core paths in scotland is essentially the same as blocking a RoW in england, an alternative convenient route needs to be put in place. if not it becomes a local authority issue.

Sorry, the fence bridge pic isn’t the latest debacle. That pics from when they closed the woods off for their Halloween event.

“Sold thousands of tickets.”
Oh – and an event licence too.

Heaps of paper work behind that – roads sign-off, toilets, police- signoff.

Yeah, straight to local councillor.
Local access forum.
Local rag.
Planning.

Same letter, bullet point the issues: i.e. you previously had access rights, there was a path built, physical intimidation by volunteers of elderly people.

^^^ I don’t understand this – if the owner isn’t trying to stop access altogether (as the main entrance is still open) then why are they closing off other access points?

can you check if there are core paths across the land?

There are some sporadic dashed lines on the OS map which cover some parts of the paths but they’re not linked up and complete as per the actual paths on the ground

Found the plans that are on the council website and the path they’ve built is clearly shown on those plans

Check on here to see if there is a core path. Scroll down to the interactive map

https://www.nature.scot/enjoying-outdoors/routes-explore/local-path-networks

Even if they’ve not got an OAO in place at this time they will have a core paths plan on their website with paths mapped and listed.

Unfortunately OS have still not managed to get around to showing core paths on OS Maps since 2003 and have various excuses for why not.

who actually is the celebrity walloper in question?

Oh, he’s quite the character

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13205763.council-chief-executive-accused-labour-donor-land-sale-threat/

I don’t understand this – if the owner isn’t trying to stop access altogether (as the main entrance is still open) then why are they closing off other access points?

To make access as difficult as possible. Its a well known tactic – see archerfield estates

being Scotland they cannot close off access completely but it they make it as restrictive as they can with only one entrance then it reduces the amount of folk who use the land as you can no longer walk across it. They also will put the single access point in as difficult a position as they can for the local people

^^^ I don’t understand this – if the owner isn’t trying to stop access altogether (as the main entrance is still open) then why are they closing off other access points?

I sense some disconnect between the celebrity walloper and his lackeys on the ground. It’s amazing what abit of assumed power can do to some people.

they make it as restrictive as they can with only one entrance then it reduces the amount of folk who use the land as you can no longer walk across it. They also will put the single access point in as difficult a position as they can for the local people

yep, this is exactly what has been done in the past few weeks.. (though we could all now come in via bob’s new path.. 🙂

I have to say I would be tempted with a bit of “direct action” ie opening up the closed path and also make sure locals video these wallopers that try to intimidate. A few arrests amongst his minions for assault ( and that is what that is – no actual physical contacted needed for it to be assault) would soon stop the shenanigans

Dissapointed celebrity walloper isn’t english, I was already to apologise. He is one of your own. Punish him.

^^^^^ they also make some jolly tasty bevvy .. 🙂

About Us

Well he sounds delightful and unfortunately may have the council bent over a desk….

bob, they have a FaceBook page where you could pose some questions, I do not know how/if they moderate before posts are public :

https://www.facebook.com/KWoodlandsEKCT

Who are the Laird’s lackeys? Are they like the midget in that Clint Eastwood film? Power and Respect at last and abusing it…

Oh, he’s quite the character

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13205763.council-chief-executive-accused-labour-donor-land-sale-threat/

He seems the best definition of a walloper I’ve seem for a while. Well, since I had dealings with the ddgy character who built the houses we stayed in previously and was most definitely of dodgy background it turned out.

bob, they have a FaceBook page where you could pose some questions, I do not know how/if they moderate before posts are public :

https://www.facebook.com/KWoodlandsEKCT

Almost every post they put up has a mention of “our land”. They genuinely think they can do what they want. My back garden faces right onto the woods and I’ve actually put a gate in to let us walk straight into the woods. Unfortunately it’s only useable in summer as quite a large pond forms in winter, but I’m amazed they haven’t been down to have an angry word with me yet.

Is there anything in your development plans about access to public transport? If that path was put in to allow new residents easier access to the existing train station you could be onto something. Can you access a planning portal to find all the documents used in the planning process?

In the absence of a Local Access officer you could always try the National Access Forum…

https://www.outdooraccess-scotland.scot/act-and-access-code/national-access-forum

My understanding is that basically all land in Scotland being accessible is the default, with the exceptions to this, and reasons for exclusion, set out in the legislation.