Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 1:41 pm on 20 September 2017.
Another important feature of this also respects the rights of landowners and farmers. Obviously, it’s in the interests of those who want to see the countryside prosper that we have access as widely as possible, and the more people who get to understand the ways of the countryside, the better it is for all those who live and work in rural communities. But extending the right to, for example, cycle on footpaths, in the same way as currently happens on bridleways, offers new challenges about the riparian land, and similarly the right to camp in open spaces as well, and how one gets there in the first place. So, I hope that the Cabinet Secretary will try to balance the interests here very carefully indeed because farming is under pressure in many ways.