Dear Constituent,
Thank you for contacting me about access to nature, which is such an important issue for people's health and well-being. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the backbench business debate that you have mentioned, however, I will have the Minister’s comments and other contributions and although I appreciate that you may have watched the debate, given your interest in this issue, the details are here: https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2023-05-18/debates/72C37494-B6BC-43E5-8026-8F4EC4EC60CA/PublicAccessToNature
The Environmental Improvement Plan published earlier this year (available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/environmental-improvement-plan) includes a commitment to ensure that everyone lives within 15 minutes' walk of a green or blue space. Through the £14.5m ‘Access for All’ programme, the Government has targeted measures to improve access to our protected landscapes and countryside in addition to the existing rights mentioned below. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is working to complete the King Charles III England Coast Path which will be the longest waymarked and maintained coast walking route in the world. The Government believe that the route will be fully walkable by the end of this Parliament and will cover the entirety of the English coastline from Northumberland to Cornwall.
Through programmes with the Community Forests and Forestry England, Ministers are creating large-scale, publicly accessible woodlands near towns and cities. Defra supports land managers to provide woodland access through the Countryside Stewardship and England Woodland Creation Offer schemes. The Environmental Land Management promotes long-term permissive access for recreation, bringing people closer to nature and contributing to the rural economy.
I have been informed that Defra will retain the deadline for registering historic rights of way, as originally intended by the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, however, given the delays caused by Covid-19 the Secretary of State has elected to extend this deadline by five years from 1 January 2026 to 1 January 2031 to enable the work to be completed as fully as possible. Other reforms focus on the acceleration of the recording of historic rights of way. For example, local authorities will have increased powers to reject weakly-evidenced applications, ignore irrelevant objections agree appropriate modifications directly with landowner, and to correct obvious administrative errors on the definitive map through a significantly shortened process aimed at reducing the amount of time it takes to approve and register an historic right of way.
Furthermore, the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 provides for a right to roam across open access land, giving the public a right of access to most areas of mountain, moor, heath, down, registered common land and coastal margin. England has a fantastic network of footpaths and the public has the ‘right to roam’ over many areas of wild, open countryside.
Ministers have also been investing £2 billion in walking and cycling over this Parliament, building hundreds of miles of high-quality cycle lanes increasing access to a range of places including green spaces. The Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy includes a commitment to increase opportunities for all children and young people to spend time in nature, learn more about it, and get involved in improving their environment. Since 2020, I understand that over 250 more miles of walking and cycling routes have opened, including through the Active Travel Fund and the National Cycle Network upgrade programme, which has helped more people to enjoy healthy activity in nature. The Department for Transport and the Active Travel England will continue to fund Sustrans for the National Cycle Network, which aims to deliver improved surfacing, greater accessibility and the removal of barriers that impact cyclists.
Finally, I will conclude by repeating the minister's comments yesterday, on the pleasing extent of access to nature in this country: "Members have raised the importance of accessing nature, so I will set out how we can access nature at the moment and how we will improve that. Our public woodlands and forests are mostly open to people, too. Forestry England has 258,000 hectares. There are national parks, as we have heard, including England’s largest, the Lake district, where I live, at 912 square miles. But we do not just want to improve access to nature.
There are 1,800 miles of existing national trails in England and, increasingly, we are committed to making these trails as accessible as we can. It is not just about the square miles; it is about the linear miles too. When complete, at 2,700 miles, the new King Charles III England coast path will be England’s longest national trail and the longest continuous coastal path in the world. The Coast to Coast national trail will add another 197 miles of national trail. When both the King Charles III England coast path and the Coast to Coast national trail are complete, the total length of national trails in England will be 4,952 miles. There are also 43,910 miles of inland waterways in England and Wales. The national cycle network spans 12,000 miles of signed routes for walking, wheeling and cycling and includes more than 5,000 miles of traffic-free paths.
I think that I have well and truly set out that there is far more that 8% of the countryside and indeed urban areas for people to enjoy. That is important because we know the links between greener living and higher life satisfaction, including improved mental health. I am delighted that there have been 7,000 referrals through green social prescribing and we look to do even more of that.
As has been mentioned many times, we published our environmental improvement plan on 31 January with its 10 goals—I recommend it to all Members. In that plan, we have announced our intention to work across Government to ensure that everyone lives within a 15-minute walk of a blue or green space. This recognises the fact that 68% of trips to green space are made within two miles of home, so it is crucial that nature is close to where people live. We will be working with Natural England to achieve this. We have already put in place our green infrastructure framework, which is being used to identify those areas where Government funding should be prioritised, especially where we have higher levels of deprivation.
We are also taking steps to increase the number of routes to and through nature. For example, last week the Bridlington to Filey stretch of the King Charles III England coastal path was opened, connecting thousands of people to the Yorkshire coast.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I really could go on and on about the existing access to nature, but I know that it is important to talk about what we are doing in the future. We have our Farming in Protected Landscapes scheme, which is increasing access to national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty. It has been incredibly successful, and we will be extending it through to 2025. There has been much reference to the environmental land management scheme, which is enabling farmers to make their land more accessible to people too.
Our local nature recovery strategies will be across all 48 upper tiers of local authorities in England, and will involve working with farmers, private landowners, trusts and local authorities to make sure that we are increasing access to nature. I also wish to mention what we are doing with trees. Our target to increase tree canopy cover to 16.5% by 2050 means that we need to plant about 400 million trees. That will also bring people closer to nature.
In conclusion, connecting people with nature is at the heart of our environmental improvement plan. We are beginning to tackle the inequalities that have been referenced in the debate today and we are doing that particularly in urban areas where there are levels of deprivation, but there is much, much more to do."
Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.
Sincerely,
