A letter to Open Spaces

Following this blog by Kate Ashbrook, general secretary of the Open Spaces Society, here is
The Other side of the Story

A Letter to Open Spaces in answer to Kate Ashbrook

I almost agree with everything you say but Open Spaces seems blind to the small number of people who Are only asking that Public Rights of way should not go through their gardens,homes or private property. Open Spaces are complaining about the state of paths so surely you can see that this is the sort of behavior that you are asking some unfortunate people to put up with through their own homes.

My argument is that you could ask Councils to spend their limited resources on the vast majority of paths that are established and used.....even claim some of the so called 'lost' ones but just drop persecuting those burdened with paths that cause them loss of privacy,security,stress and bankruptcy. How can you possibly justify Bedfordshire CC spending £3000 on a London Barister against an old man who has lost all his money and is defending his right to privacy on his own land and only asking that the public use a perfectly good public bridleway which runs parallel about 50yards away. I just don't get it. If you mirror those sort of cases the money that could be saved would amount to thousands. I suppose I am saying that in defending what you consider to be public 'rights' that are actually no more than 'rights for rights sake' you are actually wasting council resources that could be used elsewhere.

I was accused today by the sentence " ......unlike you,I only want what I am entitled too......". He is an Open Spaces supporter. How dare he suggest that I am trying to claim anything that I am not entitled too! I AM entitled to privacy in my own home. It is OS and people like him who are doing all the claiming! Sadly he is 'blinkered' by the attitude of OS and other pressure groups who put out that they have a monopoly on what is right and just. 

I am not Claiming anything....I am defending my right to my own property bought and paid for with my own money. ( which is not on the definitive map and didn't have a ROW when I bought it 17 years ago) Who would not defend their home? Who would not consider it tantamount to legal theft? I am not claiming anything of 'yours' .....'you' are claiming something that belongs to me!  I do not want problems of rubbish and holliganism in my own garden. How is it that I am  perceived as the 'militant' one when actually I am the 'victim'. If only OS and Ramblers could see that by helping us to get legislation changed so that footpaths do not go through gardens, councils could save money by not having to support applications for ones that do.