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Permissive Access

As well as the new statutory right of access introduced under the Countryside and Right of Way Act 2000 (CRoW) many differing permissive access provisions are in place, from long term legal agreements to temporary tax payer funded access.

Access by law or right (Du Jure)

As well as the recent CRoW Act other parliamentary Acts in the past have given the public rights to walk over areas of countryside, such as on common and waste land in urban araes (urban commons). The main four other Acts being:

  • The 1925 Law of Property Act (section 193)
  • The 1899 Commons Act (Part 1)
  • The National Parks & Access to the Countryside Act 1949 (Part 4)
  • The Ancient Monuments & Archaeological Areas Act 1979 (Section 19)
As well as these Acts others have give access to specific places such as Dartmoor, The New Forest, The Malverns, Helvellyn, Haweswater and Elan Valley.

A lot of this land was in fact mapped under the CRoW Act and is marked on new OS maps as access land. However where this is the case the old rights are still in force not the new access rights from CRoW. This means that restrictions under CRoW do not apply. Due to the part of the CRoW Act dealing with the older rights this access land is some times called section 15 land. CRoW Act section 15.
More information on Section 15 land can be found on Natural England's web site as part of it's Recording Other Access Rights project.

'Voluntary' Access

This is some what of a misnomer as often there has either been a law compelling or encouraging landowners to allow access, or a financial. Examples include:

  • Organisations such the Forestry Commission, some water companies and the National Trust, who by the way they are run or were set up are obliged to allow access to some degree.
  • Land covered by schemes such as Countryside Stewardship, Countryside Access and other agri-environment schemes where landowners receive a cash payment for providing access, some times along side conservation measures.
  • The 'conditionally exempt land and buildings scheme' which gives exemption from Inheritance Tax to landowners who allow access to their land. Under the scheme they do not have to publicise the access but details can be found on the Inland Revenue website.
  • Voluntary or in some cases compulsory, access agreements with local or National Park authorities.

Genuine 'altruistic' access

There are examples of landowners who grant access over their land on a genuinely altruistic basis. Some public bodies, charities or conservation organisations do so, including the RSPB, the Woodland Trust and some local and national park authorities, but very few private landowners do. Under Section of the CRoW Act land can be dedicated as open access land.

De facto access

In some places the landowner may well have tolerated access leading walkers to assume they have a right to walk, because they have always done so. In fact in such cases the landowner could turn them off at any time. A good example is many of Britain's beaches.