For GOD'S SAKE. Massive landowners call for ban on disposable BBQs, but at the same time call for "a lifting of the ban on controlled burning" 'You oiks shouldn't burn moorland - that's OUR job' Entitled double standards. Ban both. @georgemonbiot.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

Calls to ban disposable barbecues in England and Wales over wildfire risk

Lib Dems and many Labour MPs join farmers, landowners and firefighters in urging temporary prohibition

theguardian.com

‼️Breaking: Almost three-quarters of English riverbanks have no right of access. Our new investigation has found that 71% of riverbanks in England have no right of access on either bank. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

REVEALED: Almost three-quarters of riverbanks in England have no public access - new analysis by @righttoroam.bsky.social @lewis-winks.bsky.social As heatwaves get worse we need a right to responsibly access rivers @angelaeagle1.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Almost 75% of England’s riverbanks ‘off limits’ to public, figures show

Campaigners urge government to introduce right of access to water, particularly as heatwaves become more common

theguardian.com

I see Labour MPs still announcing stuff on X, a platform specifically designed to make people hate them, 100% shaped to push them out of public life and which would ideally see many of them in prison. Funny old world.

@lewis-winks.bsky.social “Trees in and around school grounds offer vital shade during heatwaves like the one we’ve just experienced, while also benefiting wellbeing, improving air quality, enhancing biodiversity and enriching outdoor learning opportunities.... www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Private schools offer 41% more tree shade than state schools in England

Analysis reveals stark socioeconomic divide, with schools with highest free school meal eligibility having fewer trees

theguardian.com

Bit late to this - added it to my reading list and promptly went festivaling - but this is very good and shows why the politics of land needs to return and be at the heart of 'Manchesterism'. Without it we can't really achieve a lot of Burnham's aims; the politics of the physical needs to return.

Guy Shrubsole@guyshrubsole.bsky.social · last mo.

Why Manchesterism is a politics of land: new blog by me Andy Burnham's 'place first' philosophy opens up questions of land ownership & access - from his support for public ownership & land value tax, to Manchester's history of pioneering the right to roam: righttoroam.substack.com/p/why-manche...

‘“Manchesterism is the end of neoliberalism,” Burnham has declared in one of his campaign videos. If this is to be so, a reckoning is needed not only with neoliberalism’s privatisation of public services, but also of land itself.’ righttoroam.substack.com/p/why-manche...

Why Manchesterism is a politics of land

Andy Burnham's 'place first' philosophy opens up questions of land ownership & access

righttoroam.substack.com

I’m not saying the debate in the U.K. has moved to the right, but Ed Miliband is basically seen as Pol Pot for aiming for a climate target first agreed to by…I think Theresa May’s government? Definitely Johnson’s. And this chat is going on during the middle of a record-breaking heatwave

I joined Tony Hawks for his new Radio 4 series, exploring the link between access and play for @righttoroam.bsky.social . We discussed how patterns of ownership, rights and restrictions interact to present barriers in England today. Give it a listen! www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Tony Hawks Just Wants to Play - Off Limits - BBC Sounds

From walks on the moor to games in a park, Tony looks at how access and play are linked.

bbc.co.uk

A tale of two heatwaves... 🏊‍♀️Spain: ensure everyone has access to cool water by heavily discounting municipal lidos; ⛔England: shut off all access to the reservoir in case the public consider swimming! @righttoroam.bsky.social

We're honoured to have filmed with students from Churston Ferrers Grammar School to help create a Dartmoor focused entry for the global #Docathon film competition, answering questions from the young film makers about what made access to #Dartmoor so important. www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeLo...

Our Common Ground: Churston Grammar Student Dartmoor Docathon Documentary

YouTube video by Dartmoor Preservation Association

youtube.com

If you're looking for reassurance as to why you ditched X, give this article by Jonathan Liew a read, and then share it with someone who's still there: share.google/CKBEgYExzX2y...

If you’re still on Elon Musk’s X, ask yourself this: why? | Jonathan Liew

Some argue that quitting the platform formerly known as Twitter cedes the space to malign actors. But it’s an open sewer, beyond redemption, says Guardian columnist Jonathan Liew

share.google

Today has been the hottest day in May on record with Kew Gardens provisionally reaching 34.8°C - exceeding the previous highest May temperature in the UK by a full 2 degrees Celsius🌡️ This heat would be exceptional in the UK even in mid summer, let alone in May📈

While all eyes are on Farage, we're overlooking something even worse: the building of the very tight and truly vile operation that is Restore Britain. This excellent essay/report by Simon Pearson should wake us up to the threat - and to what exactly it is. simonpearson1.substack.com/p/tory-30

“Tory 3.0”

The British far right has spent fifty years failing to find a leader who looks like he could run the country. Last Thursday, it did. This is Tory 3.0.

simonpearson1.substack.com

Obscured by our most iconic landscapes are 'shadow places': counterpoints to the carefully-curated and bucolic countryside. Confronting the interwoven demands of nature recovery and ecological literacy requires us to look to the relationships which shape our land - warts and all. 🧵1/

This is a perfect illustration of when space opened by a radical social movement becomes neutered and watered down by those who believe 'it's not political'. Pretending you want to create space, while editing out the components which discomfort you is doubling down on the initial injustice.

Davenant 📸@marcdavenant.bsky.social · 3mo ago

In case people haven’t spotted it this appears to be an attempt to block the annual Kinder trespass event next year. Screenshots sent to me today by a concerned local who wants to remain anonymous. @righttoroam.bsky.social @jon-moses.bsky.social @guyshrubsole.bsky.social

Good news for children as well as headteachers - now the government should get on with introducing social media prohibition for under 16s. Mobile phones to be banned in schools in England under new plans share.google/U8EgPVpD058x...

Mobile phones to be banned in schools in England under new plans

Government amendment to children’s wellbeing and schools bill to replace existing guidance with statutory ban

share.google

Delighted to go on BBC Politics South yesterday and talk about the @righttoroam.bsky.social amongst other things. Sweden has had this law of “public access to land” for decades, Scotland introduced it in 2003, its time we did the same in England.

There is a viral video going around on X and Facebook which has been seized on by the far-right. It claims to show a young British Asian destroying a dry stone wall. But as so often with such ragebait, the video isn't what it seems. Here is my, probably forlorn, attempt to correct the record.

The far-right and a dry stone wall

a viral video promoted by racists is not what it seems

open.substack.com

Off (& excited) to the London premiere for Our Land Documentary - we need to change our relationship to land access. In these times of multi-crisis, land use & responsible access has never been so important. It affects us all. It’s going to be lively.

Our Land Trailer

YouTube video by MetFilm Distribution

m.youtube.com

This kind of thing at Substack (including their Nazi problem and trans hate problem) are why my newsletter is at Ghost.org and always has been. Andrew Tate is a spectacularly vile human being accused of numerous violent crimes against women and hugely corrosive for young male minds.

kottke.org@kottke.org · 4mo ago

Hey, look at Substack promoting Andrew Tate as the #1 new bestseller. The company's amoral leadership & backers will platform anyone, even ludicrously toxic rapists & human traffickers.

MASSIVE numbers on the Together march against the far right today. Right to Roam has been marching with the Folk Against Fascism bloc - Morris dancers reclaiming rural English traditions from the far right The countryside is for everyone!

The lion and the unicorn. A sentiment as apparent and as urgent today as it was for Orwell in the 1940s.

George Monbiot@georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Everything we need to do to stop climate breakdown, we also need to do for national security. Energy saving, more renewables, more electricity storage and interconnectors, electrification of transport, heating, cooking and industrial processes, plant-based diets. We win on all fronts.

VICTORY! Government to open up the Land Registry - bringing to an end a thousand years of secrecy shrouding who owns England. I’ve been campaigning for this for ten years: the new Land Use Framework, published later today, makes it government policy. 1/ www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Government to lift paywall from large parts of the Land Registry

Exclusive: finding out who owns land will become simpler under plans to make the best use of green spaces and hit net zero targets

theguardian.com

Great news. Dartmoor is an ecological disaster zone masquerading as a National Park, as its ecosystems have been grazed out by sheep. Now this must change.

Wild Justice@wildjustice.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Good news - High Court rules parts of Dartmoor have been mismanaged! Overgrazing has been damaging protected sites on Dartmoor. Read the Press Release about our latest legal challenge: wildjustice.org.uk?p=52680&prev...

This is a great news story. But it's also an interesting access story; revealing of how we talk, and think, about access rights. Nightjar are an 'amber' list species. They're ground nesters. And they roost in the sorts of habitats which often overlap with existing access land in England and Wales.

Nightjars make 'remarkable comeback' to South Downs National Park

An ecological survey has found 109 nightjar territories in the lowland heaths of east Hampshire.

bbc.co.uk

Across England, we are shut out of the majority of our woodland: so much of that which is off limits is used for pheasant shooting or private commercial forestry. Support @righttoroam.bsky.social & join a local group trespass! Time for access reform. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Nearly three-quarters of England’s woods inaccessible to public, study finds

Exclusive: Campaigners call for government to introduce right-to-roam bill that allows people to walk around their local woodlands

theguardian.com

Very happy to be representing @righttoroam.bsky.social as a member of this new rewilding alliance, and to have authored its launch report: The Welsh Way to Wild. 1) Read the report and sign up to the mailing list at: rewildingalliance.cymru 2) Give the alliance a follow: @cynghrairalwylltio.cymru

Welsh Rewilding Alliance/Cynghrair Ailwylltio Cymru@cynghrairailwylltio.cymru · 5mo ago

Welcome to the Welsh Rewilding Alliance 🌱 We’re building the power and momentum needed to deliver rewilding in Wales, by Wales, for Wales. Sign up to our newsletter to join the movement — link in our bio. #Rewilding #WelshRewildingAlliance #Cymru

When campaigners argue for public access to the countryside, the debate is often cast as though access itself is an exceptional imposition on private rights. Yet in commercial contexts, the right to exclude is seen as "central to the business model"... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

New by-law to stop people roaming at first Scottish Center Parcs

Restrictions at the site of its first Scottish holiday village will come into force in April.

bbc.co.uk

Green majority of more than 4500, Labour in third place. Absolute calamity for Keir Starmer. And a complete failure of McSweeney’s electoral philosophy. The idea of relying on an anti-Reform vote coalescing behind Labour just collapsed entirely.