The Trespasser’s Companion: A field guide to reclaiming what is already ours
Nick Hayes
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London, 2022, 288 Pages
Hardback: £14.99 | ISBN: 978-1-5266-4645-3
Review by Simon Leadbeater
For balance
For a more positive review of this book, albeit one which does not analyse what The Trespasser’s Companion actually says, read Mark Avery’s April 2022 review. Alternatively, if readers want a more in-depth if necessarily partial assessment, read on and refer to my endnotes for page references and further detail.
Setting out respective stalls
In this companion book to The book of Trespass1 Nick Hayes writes we should “not abide by labels that pit one side against the other.”2 One of numerous rampant inconsistencies, I feel readers should know something about the a priori assumptions behind this review, as I most definitely felt The Trespasser’s Companion was pitted against me. Why, may take a little explaining.
We began our rural living experiment in 2015, permitted by the local planning authority to live in our woodland while a disused structure was being converted into our new home. That project has stalled, and we now find ourselves living off-grid while restoring our wood and caring for a range of rescue animals. We would like to stay, but two main external politico-economic forces – which we never for a moment envisaged when we first moved here – one of which concerns the proposals contained in Hayes’s book – may well drive us away. Hayes believes people are entitled to enter land owned by other people as their wellbeing depends on it, and because it is a legal fiction that strangers walking on such privately owned land is harmful to its owner3 (actually, it is, but I’ll come to that later). We, however, dread the thought of people entering our sheep field, camping, lighting fires, burying their poo with trowels,4 and it enrages me to think people would do the same in woodland, when we expressly refrain from entering over 90 per cent of our wood.
The reactionary outlook befitting a landowner? I wear tweed appropriated from dispossessed scots,5 keep people out of our wood in order to breed and exterminate pheasants,6 must own signifies swathes of land,7 am a member of the 1 per cent who own 50 per cent of England,8 which my ancestors stole9 and enclosed through the proceeds of colonialism and slavery.10 When I look at my land the “vision is not just of trees and meadows, but of boundary lines, tax breaks, net yields, profits and losses.”11 Having said all of this about me at the end of his book Hayes writes a letter to my kind, beginning a conversation that starts with asserting that “the English public [is] forbidden from 92 per cent of the land…”12 Exaggeration is a quantitative phenomenon, but as this is qualitatively wrong this statement is a straight forward untruth designed to galvanise people into supporting Hayes’s political agenda. The accurate position is that 8 per cent of land is subject to a right to roam – this does not mean the remainder is inaccessible. I had to go to the trouble of correcting a Jon Moses August 2022 Guardian article; my complaint was upheld and the headline changed to There’s no right to roam over a staggering 92% of England.
Hayes’s book, through this representation, is a study in prejudice. He rightly discusses how marginalised groups may feel excluded from the countryside, but of me, a landowner, he assigns the most terrible epithets and disseminates inaccurate generalisations. Knowing something of historical precedents this makes me feel besieged, anxious, and many a time have I wished I had never ever bought land. Reading Hayes reinforces my regret and longing for a life with less contention at its heart.
To put the record straight let me describe the real me. In parenthesis, Guy Shrubsole ought to examine whether landownership is becoming increasingly diffuse,13 as mini-rewilders buy land, except this won’t fit the Hayes-Shrubsole coalition narrative. For myself, I was perhaps ahead of the curve, one of a new breed of small landowners, starting out in 1999. My partner and I own 57 acres, funded by re-mortgaging our ex-council house. Instead of a castle I live in a static mobile home; I banned pheasant shooting when we relocated here; my salad days included regular hunt sabbing;14 I agree with Mr Broccoli that Britain, indeed the world, should transition to a plant-based diet.15 But much as I may be white and male, far from having extreme wealth16 owning our land has impoverished me. I keep a flock of rescue sheep, and I, like many animal rescuers, fund their keep via an unhealthy overdraft. As I write I am looking down the barrel of a £500 plus veterinary bill to care for a sheep called Geraldine, and I am not sure where I am going to find the money. And as the temperature has dropped, my partner and I are having to wash by boiling kettles of water collected in our waterbutts; one of the joys of being a pampered privileged landowner…
The purpose of this introduction is to be honest about my biography, as it unavoidably guides how I view Hayes’s book, while simultaneously demolishing the landowner caricature. We are not all alike. But whatever my background I am not in the business of writing ad hominin book reviews. How fair my review is given the author’s and my contrasting outlooks others will have to judge. And I will strive to keep clear of the arguments themselves – is there sufficient access to the countryside? I am not sure; my intention is to focus on what Hayes says rather than to discuss the merits of his right to roam (R2R) campaign per se.
What is The Trespasser’s Companion about?
This is a nicely produced book, with marvellous drawings. Hayes is gifted, as a writer, but particularly as an illustrator. He covers a lot of ground, which in a sense is both a strength and weakness. I am going to skip the arguments suggesting that nature is good for us; this is not in dispute. Rather I will try to analyse what the book is about, to highlight Hayes’s interesting ideas and the book’s flaws.
My reading of Hayes’s argument is that there has been a single linear trajectory from the eleventh century Norman conquest, to the enclosures, which “took away our right to access English nature,”17 and led to the exclusion and disconnection of people from the countryside and much more besides; sedentary lifestyles, calamitous wildlife declines, the industrialisation and now erasion of the countryside through development. People once had a connection with nature when operating as commoners, whereby the land was managed for the community’s good as a whole. The answer going forward, is to recommon, based on the Maori notion of Kaitiaki,18 a form of stewardship, of caring for a given area by local people,19 “because the future depends on everyone caring about the environment, not just those that own it.”20 One of the more interesting threads Hayes develops is that “without a truly experiential, immersed connection to nature, how are we supposed to care… for it?” We have “come to accept… limitations on our wonder”21 via the semiotics of trespass, keep out signs, fences,22 which means we don’t even realise we are closed out from nature, limiting and constraining, and preventing us from being who we are meant to be. The idea that over the centuries hedges, barbed wire, the gamekeeper with cocked shotgun at every field corner, have somehow penetrated our psyches and made us accept that the countryside is not for us, and only the domain for white people in tweeds or hiking gear, is, I think, an interesting one. Hayes suggests something tangible has occurred, but because we don’t remember our forebear’s loss we are somehow unconsciously bereft, in a way not dissimilar to the declining baseline of life. I like this idea, and there may be some truth in it. I have never felt this way, but others may, and there is work to be done to make the countryside more welcoming for everyone I feel.23
Casting different spells
The Trespasser’s Companion is the ‘little sister’ to Hayes’s The Book of Trespass (2020), and comprises a “plan (and a provocation) to change the definition of how we connect to nature … It is not an incitement to break the law, it is a call to change it. Treat its chapters like the ingredients in a spell…”24 This is fine evocative writing, but let’s pause to think what is being said. First, the book is an incitement to trespass; we are given clear guidelines how to do so by using animal trails25 (which they would not appreciate). Second, Hayes is hereby explaining upfront that his book is a collection of thoughts, vignettes, perspectives, expert witness accounts (written by other authors) with which, waving his wand, Hayes hopes to achieve his political objectives. But those same elements or views expressed, some of which I feel close affinity to such as my shared outrage at the Sheffield tree killing, could result in a very different alchemy with radically alternative outputs.26 For example, Hayes cannot be surprised to learn that paganism has declined worldwide and not just because of enclosure.27 I am acquainted with a woodland owner, however, who allows a witches’ coven to meet at the base of his ancient Yew. No R2R required. My spirit animal, or sawaldeor,28 are the deer gracing our woods, who Hayes scared the life out of in The Book of Trespass.29 Same ingredients, but quite different magic.
Losing the plot
Progressing through Hayes’s book, I repeatedly had to stop, and think, really? Unfortunately and gratuitously some of what he writes is plain wrong or doesn’t make sense, which weakens instead of strengthening his case as Hayes may suppose. The following is illustrative of the general impression I formed and is not exhaustive. To begin with there are possible inaccuracies which are impossible to test. Hayes tells us that only 2 per cent of English woodland is ancient,30 but the Forestry Commission disagrees and suggests the figure is 2.5 per cent.31 There being so little left, 0.5 per cent matters, but the germane point here is that Hayes does not reference any of his statistics or claims, so we cannot ascertain whether what he is telling us stacks up or not. I find it very surprising that Bloomsbury proof readers didn’t pick these oddities up, but perhaps I should not be when the book’s flier repeats the untruth that we are excluded from “no less than 92% of England.”
Let’s explore some further incoherent fallacies:
- “[T]he problem with litter:” according to Hayes, “is not the littering, but the litter itself”32 because “picking up litter from the forest floor and transporting it to a bin does not help the earth”33 supplanted with unevidenced claims of waste being transported across the world. So, professionally managed waste is no better than a fly-tipped strewn woodland edge? There are issues with single-use plastics, poor practice and so on, but as one of his expert witnesses stated earlier “[p]eople think the problem with litter is that it’s just an eyesore, but it’s much more serious than that” as the author relates to a lamb she had to have shot for ingesting some plastic.34 There is ample evidence of litter harming wildlife,35 so to my mind litter is inherently bad, but once placed in a bin is (i) no longer litter, and (ii) becomes thus relatively harmless.
- Dog poo: I lost patience trying to understand what Hayes is recommending. Dogs are a problem, poo bags in trees are a problem. Does Hayes agree with former MP Anne Maine’s view we should just kick poo into the undergrowth? Alternatively, demand local authorities deal with the issue.36
- Doctor Jon Moses: is not a doctor of phenomenology any more than I am a doctor of sociology; we both have PhD equivalents.
- PMQs: “Green Party peer Natalie Bennett [never] stood up in Prime Minister’s questions” as she has not ever been an MP and the PM sits in the Commons not Lords.37
- Wishful thinking: Hayes makes wild statements, such as “what other legislation could tackle both loneliness and the destruction of ancient woodland?”38 As for the latter, how about the House of Lords’ attempts in 2021 to increase protection for ancient woodland under the draft Environment Bill?39 This was unsuccessful, but together with the Woodland Trust’s campaign protection was strengthened within the National Planning Policy Framework (the NPPF).40
- The cure for all ills: Do we believe that much of the UK population’s sedentary lifestyles and consequently high hospital admissions are the outcome of the enclosures? Do we accept that by legislating for R2R this health crisis would be resolved? Neither claim stands up to scrutiny, and in 2021 Tony Juniper, Chair of Natural England, tweeted that the vast majority of people do not choose to enjoy the access rights they already have.
- The antithesis of reality on the ground: Hayes suggests “[t]he total dominion given to a select few over our land has severed the sense that we all owe it our care…”41 Tell that to the coalition of NGOs who stood together against the ‘attack on nature,’ or to the relatively new Community Planning Alliance resisting inappropriate rural developments, all demonstrating that members of the public care very much about this countryside they are apparently excluded from.
- Championing access for the able-bodied: how are people meant to access private land. The answer is the stile; “it facilitates the public’s right to access… without risk to crops, livestock or profit.”42 How, I wonder, would this help Josie George, one of Hayes’s expert witnesses, who relies on a wheel chair or scooter.43 When the CROW Act was introduced county council staff came along with chainsaws and chopped up all the stiles along our local footpaths because, as my neighbours and I were informed, they inhibited disabled access.
- Dead wood matters: finally, I cannot help but mention one of the proposals I especially dislike. Hayes believes campers should be able to collect firewood from woodland to fuel their camp fires. Or, in other words, to quote Charles Elton, Hayes wants campers to remove and incinerate the habitat of a fifth of a natural forest’s fauna.44 This is plain wicked in my book.
Towards the end of the book, after Hayes takes a swipe at rewilding,45 it finally became clear to me why I was struggling to locate coherence. The Trespasser’s Companion reads like a sottish diatribe from the pub bore expounding on his obsession, liberally dosed with non sequiturs so any value in the book’s central ideas become lost. I find this almost sad, so I want to do justice to what I think is Hayes’s most innovative thought.
Recommoning the land
To undo the horrors of centuries of enclosure, we must recommon the land, which is to say, make the land work for community benefit including, but not limited to access.46 Let us delve a little further into the case being made. Once upon a time in a golden age life for the vast majority of us was oriented around the common, wherein local people – commoners – cared for the land “in such a way that their grandchildren and their grandchildren’s grandchildren could benefit from it too.”47 Unfortunately Harold lost at Hastings in 1066, ushering in the concept of enclosure, first for deer parks and in subsequent centuries driving people to the cities in search of work “when common land turned to private land”48, 49 resulting really in pretty much of everything we all probably lament in our changing countryside; “neoliberal enclosure… [n]ew housing estates on greenbelt land, new industrial estates… obliterating [nature] altogether.”50
Again, let us reflect on what is being said for a moment. The reason Britain has retained some elements of traditional elite landownership patterns is because, bar the hiccough of a civil war, the UK transitioned to a parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarch by avoiding the bloody revolutions and wars inflicted on Europe, of which the suffering in Ukraine today is probably a legacy. I am also certain we cannot blame the Conqueror for everything. So, when Hayes cites another expert witness, who complains about the replacement of “sheep-cropped turf and the lovely curl of the downs… and [now] all you see is ‘ouses ’ouses’ ‘ouses”51 should we not in part blame England’s rapidly growing population, or is that William’s fault too? Or improved nutrition, lower infant mortality rates, immigration, greater longevity, changing life styles. I hate to see green fields converted to anonymous housing estates, but before accepting that every contemporary threat to the countryside is the result of unequal landownership and the enclosures, we must weigh up how historically it could have been different, and probably worse, and that the countryside would still have ended up being dominated by industrial farming and threatened by development as now, or more so.
In exploring Hayes’s idea, we also need to be clear that being a commoner was principally an agricultural concept, ‘a right which one or more persons may have to take or use some portion of that which another man’s soil naturally produces.’52 Hayes argues that this gave people access to nature, which may literally be true, but being entirely and directly dependent on nature is perhaps a more accurate expression of the relationship. As a species we remain dependent on nature, but as individuals not directly or entirely, and there is a case for saying lifting people out of this dependency helps us to appreciate nature all the more. The other day53 by chance I caught Ancient Mysteries with Clive Anderson, who discovered that a pit of dismembered human bones was the result of cannibalism occurring over successive centuries when the crops failed. So, to start with, we should not romanticise commonism as some sort of eudemonic state to aspire to. Second, we should look at what Hayes states commoners were entitled to. Some equanimity was sustained, because if too much were taken the sustainability of the commons system would fail. But the benefits Hayes refers to were exclusively all human benefits. And this brings me to my final criticism of commonism – and therein Hayes – the commons system was profoundly anthropocentric, and, therefore, so is Hayes’s forward-looking vision. Early in his book Hayes suggests that observing the non-human world would help “draw us out of our anthropocentric mindsets”54 yet endorses commonism which is unadulterated anthropocentrism. It’s all about us and the products we take from the land, and ‘products’ includes animals, ‘livestock,’ ‘stock of species,’55 ‘game.’56
Now is the time to return to one of Hayes’s early premises, that “trespass is harmful to the landowner,” and as such is a ‘legal fiction.’57 It depends upon who is considered to be the owner. If people were to trespass on what is legally my land, it would cause me harm, emotionally, psychologically, to the extent I would have to move away, but not for the reasons most would assume. It is because, no doubt arguably in an also fictional manner – but with a fundamentally practical outcome – I have given my land to someone else, and the harm done to them by trespass is easily demonstrable. Hayes evidences this himself.58
To elucidate, let me précis some of the history of our small parcel of England. Our woodland has belonged to a lord of the manor who probably made their money via slavery, later by a beer baron, but was originally the property of the Church. And this institution let out the land for, inter alia, the thrill of the chase. There are spectator stand foundations and an outline of what was once known as a ‘deer laud’ or deer lawn, which is to say, a glade in the middle of the wood, which we have restored. So, the deer lawn perhaps formed part of the commoner package to hunt game, and if not for commoners, local lords, the result being the same, the land was formerly utilised mainly for sport with food a bi-product. Well, since that time there has been something of a revolution under our ownership. The oppressed have inherited the earth, or at least the deer lawn. It is now kept exclusively for the deer, where they graze, joist or simply lie. The land is now theirs to benefit from as they will.
With this change of ownership, is it still ‘fiction’ that human trespass on the deer’s land causes no harm to the landowner, that is to say, to the deer? Of course it causes harm. Such trespass pushes them out of their home, and if persistent or perpetual, annihilates their home. Mark Avery applauds Hayes’s blank final chapter A Detailed Investigation into the Moral Justification for the Exclusive Ownership of Land. Blank, yes, because no one in practice owns land exclusively.
Hayes would never want us to “wilfully ignore a mountain of overwhelming peer-reviewed scientific evidence”59 yet he, and every R2R campaigner I’ve ever had discussions with, either ignores such evidence, changes the subject and talks about something else, or suggests somehow of lesser importance. Of what do I speak? That a human presence in natural spaces displaces nonhuman inhabitants. Some of the research I adduce in support of this argument can be found in The R2R Stomps on Nature and The Sixth Driver of the Sixth Extinction. No need to repeat here.
The purpose of propaganda
I might be guilty of engaging in this review process as if this were a book rather than a loose assemblage of ingredients that combined aim to create a spell. Some might also argue that upsetting people, which Avery also seems to write approvingly of, is no way to win arguments or to get people on side. Hayes is clever enough to know all this. Being inconsistent, mendacious, inaccurate, absurd, plain silly in places, matters not. Hayes has a clear objective. To paint landowners in a certain negative light, to encourage trespass and outrage at the injustice of slave owning families selfishly keeping the people off their land. The complex truth does not matter to Nick Hayes. What he wants is to achieve a change in public consensus.60 He is also saying something profoundly interesting, that we need to establish a new covenant61 with nature. That this transformative idea gets lost under the barrage of invective aimed against people like me Hayes has no one to blame but himself.
Assuming my assessment is halfway fair, whether this book is a good one or not, whether I agree with it or not, hardly matters. It is well written with some excellent illustrations. It is also all over the place, has inherent contradictions, and the author aims to simplify a complex area to achieve a political end. It is thus a political tract, propaganda. I view this as a terrible shame. Hayes’s idea of recommoning (however anthropocentric), and how we have unconsciously been excluded from something without us realising it, are good ideas, upon which a fine book could be written. Hayes is clearly capable of penning that work. Instead he has done something rather different. Think of it this way. He tells his readership that some of us wear funny clothes, that we gained our wealth and land by oppressing people, and has told numerous untruths including that we somehow manage to exclude the good people of England from 92 per cent of the country62 which by rights is already theirs. Next thing you know people will be throwing objects through our shop windows.
Hayes is willing the future by representing reality in a way I don’t believe the vast majority of people recognise. But truth in politics is not always what counts. In order to effect change Hayes’s approach could succeed; similar tactics have worked before. The idea that forthcoming UK legislation might be founded on such propaganda, however, is not likely to result in a happy outcome. And people who resort to these types of tactics and messaging do not deserve to be listened to, unless and until (i) they marshal coherent arguments and address all of the detailed issues I allude to in this review;63 and (ii) more importantly still, put a stop to disparaging people by virtue of some of us being landowners, whether small or large, new comers or of ancient lineage. We are not all alike. Some of us care deeply about the land; others of us also believe that true equity resides in enabling people to enjoy nature while protecting the rights of nonhuman beings like ‘our’ deer who need space to themselves.
References
1Hayes, N., (2020), The Book of Trespass: Crossing the lines that divide us, Bloomsbury Circus, London
2Hayes, N. (2022), The Trespasser’s Companion: a field guide to reclaiming what is already ours, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, p. 249.
3Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 28.
4Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 191.
5Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 35.
6Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 46.
7Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 141
8Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 234.
9Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 230.
10Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 248.
11Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 170.
12Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 270. Elsewhere Hayes uses more qualified language, but also says towards the end of the book “92 per cent of English land is out of bounds to the public.” The Bloomsbury flier also states “We may be excluded from most of our land – no less than 92% of England…”
13See Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 165.
14See Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 132.
15Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 222.
16See Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 78.
17See Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 101.
18Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 161.
19Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 260.
20Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 263.
21Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 11.
22Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 33.
23Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 33.
24Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 11.
25Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 39. As an aside, with infuriatingly no index it has been tiresome tracking down these references.
26 I have not assessed the claim that 97 per cent of waterways are ‘out of bounds’ because this is a subject I know less about. Inasmuch as the 92 per cent figure is wrong, quite possibly 97 per cent is too. But I’d like to touch on one of Hayes’s examples, granting rights to the River Cam, as discussed by expert witness and barrister, Paul Powesland (pp. 237-9), as this illustrates one of the reoccurring problems with Hayes’s book. Mr Powesland’s actions protecting the Sheffield trees were simply magnificent, appearing at the last moment like a legendary knight in shining armour riding up to save the day for both local people and the nature they were defending. His defence of the River Roding is also exceptional. Naturally enough, therefore, I rejoice at declaring the Rights of the River Cam (p. 239). But then, let us ask ourselves, what would that entail? People standing up for the river to prevent its pollution; certainly. People being able to enjoy the river, by wild swimming, walking, canoeing. Here, a balance has to be struck. For what is a river? Is a river just flowing water, or infinitely more than that? I would say a river might be defined as the wellspring to a myriad of life, aquatic, but also bird and mammal life, the latter including water voles, otters, beavers. How should their interests be valued and represented. In this connection Helen Kopnina has led thinking in a number of articles and book chapters concerning what she terms wild democracy or ecodemocracy. As discussed in my review, Hayes’s book is fundamentally flawed as it relies on anthropocentric commonism as the bedrock for his vision of recommoning. Hayes falls into the trap, as Dr Kopnina writes, of “‘environmental justice’ [being]… conventionally used concerning the distribution of natural resources and burdens (such as pollution) among human groups…” Rarely do we consider “justice between species.” She continues “[t]he urgent need to replace the anthropocentric with an Earth-centred paradigm necessitates broadening the definition of ‘stakeholders’… they thus include animals collectively (species) and individually…” (Kopnina, H., Leadbeater, S., Heister, ‘Wild democracy; Ecodemocracy in rewilding,’ In Routledge Handbook of Rewilding, Hawkins, S, Convery, I., Carver, S., Beyers, R., (eds), 2023 p. 339. See also Kopnina, H., Leadbeater, S., Heister, A., Cryer, P., Lewis, T. ‘Ecodemocracy in the wild:if existing democracies were to operationalize ecocentrism and animal ethics in policy-making, what would rewilding look like?GARN book (Ruales, J. G., Hovden, K., Kopnina, H., Robertson, C. and Schoukens, H. (2022) Rights of Nature in Europe: Exploring the untapped potential for a paradigm shift? New York: Routledge – forthcoming). If we uphold the interests of these different species, are we likely to accept the complete domination of one species, as Hayes does. Of course not. The right of water voles, for example, to undisturbed habitat, would naturally follow from exercising ecodemocracy for a river given rights. A R2R would undermine many species’ rights, and not be consistent with granting a river rights at all. This is one more example of how the ingredients Hayes uses in his spell Dr Kopnina, and co-authors, would use to create a spell aiming for a different result, viz. justice between species rather than focusing on justice within one species.
27Referred to in Leadbeater, S.R.B., (2019), ‘Ancient Roots to Untruths. Unlearning the past and seeing the world anew,’ Quarterly Journal of Forestry, Vol 113 No. 1, January 2019
28Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., pp. 210-11.
29 In the hyperlink I include my 2021 ECOS article ‘The Right to Roam; the impending colonisation of nature?’ In this search for ‘taster,’ which will bring readers to the section in Haye’s earlier book.
30Hayes, 2022), Op.cit., p. 45.
31Tobin, K., (2022), ‘Why woods are so important for nature,’ Forestry Commission, 19 October, 2022: https://forestrycommission.blog.gov.uk/2022/10/19/why-woods-are-so-important-for-nature/
32Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 113.
33Ibid
34Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 66.
35Webster, B., (2018), ‘Litter thrown from cars ‘killing millions of animals,’’ The Times, 4 April 2018: https://www.driving.co.uk/news/litter-thrown-cars-killing-millions-animals/
36Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 129.
37Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 158.
38Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 255.
39See Aspect Ecology News: http://aspect-ecology.com/september-2021-aspect-ecologys-evidence-at-appeal-secures-a-permission-with-a-full-costs-award-for-a-site-adjacent-to-pevensey-levels-sac-copy/
40Cormack, A., (2021), ‘Public statement response to ancient woodland protection announcements,’ The Woodland Trust, 22 October, 2021: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/press-centre/2021/10/ancient-woodland-protection-announcements/
41Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 71.
42Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 254.
43Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., pp. 86-8.
44Kirby, K.J. & Drake, C.M., (Eds) (1993), ‘Dead wood matters: the ecology and conservation of saproxylic invertebrates in Britain,’ English Nature, p. 4. When Hayes (p.193) talks of choosing wood apparently dry and devoid of insects this may seem careful and good advice. But it actually demonstrates his ignorance of the needs of saproxylic invertebrates, who also inhabit, sometimes as larvae, the pieces of wood he is encouraging readers to burn.
45Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 263.
46I liked Hayes’s reference to planting trees (p. 262), for example, though in my experience volunteers can be found to plant trees but are not so keen on doing other work like coppicing, hay making etc.
47Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 74.
48Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 75.
49 Common land was invariably owned by a lord or institution (such as the Church), though Hayes is not clear about this.
50Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 100.
51Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 175.
52Navickas, K., (2022) professional website, ‘A history of public space; contested public and private spaces in England,’ by Prof Katrina Navickas: https://historyofpublicspace.uk/history/definitions-and-typologies-of-public-space/
5322 November 2022
54Hayes, (2022), Op.cit, p. 16.
55Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 76-7.
56Hayes, (2022), The Book of Trespass, p. 24.
57Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 28.
58 See note 29.
59 Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., p. 140. Though, in fact, wrong again. Access with dogs did annihilate the nesting bird site at Holkham when Lockdown ended in June 2020. “The impacts were devastating,’ to quote Jake Fiennes. Irwin, A., (2022), ‘How a billion dogs, including our pets, are laying waste to wildlife,’ New Scientist, 30 April 2022, p. 44. I understand access has since been better managed.
60Hayes, (2022), Op.cit., pp. 249-50.
61My term, not Hayes’s
62Hayes repeats this claim, p. 270.
63On 16 November 2022 I sent an email concerning the practical issues arising from R2R to Green Party parliamentarians and officials arising out of the party’s R2R bill, such as how people would access greenbelt fields, insurance implications and so on. At the time of writing I have not received a reply.