Countryside: Access

Asked by: Alice Macdonald (Labour (Co-op) - Norwich North)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to (a) encourage people to access nature and (b) ensure visitors to the countryside are informed about the statutory guidance entitled The Countryside Code: advice for countryside visitors, last updated 26 May 2023.

Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The Government recognises the importance of providing access to the outdoors for people’s health and wellbeing and is working to ensure this is safe and appropriate. This is why we have set out our ambitious manifesto commitments to create nine new national river walks and three new national forests in England, expanding access to the great outdoors. We will make further announcements on plans to develop policy on access to nature in due course.

The Government is also already delivering several policies to increase access to nature including:

• Working to complete the King Charles III England Coast Path which, at around 2,700 miles, will be the longest waymarked and maintained coast walking route in the world. Over 2,000 miles have now been approved as King Charles III England Coast Path, with over 1,000 miles already open. It will also create 250,000 hectares of new open access land within the coastal margin.

• Designating Wainwright’s Coast to Coast route across the north of England as a National Trail.

• Delivering the £16m ‘Access for All’ programme, which consists of a package of targeted measures in our protected landscapes, national trails, forests and the wider countryside to make access to green and blue spaces more inclusive.

The Countryside Code was refreshed and relaunched in 2021 and a long-term campaign to promote the messages of the code began. In 2023, we also released a version of the Code for land managers. The Code sets out the rules that we all must follow to enjoy visits to the countryside safely and responsibly.