Simon Brooke wrote:
> in message <[email protected]>, 2.30 zulu-india\ ('"Mr R@t \')
> wrote:
>
>> However as others said with the Ridgeway there's not a lot which can
>> be done about the farmers; they have legally paid for the land and
>> are using it to contribute towards the local economy whilst others
>> are mostly using it for leisure (NB: I can't speak for other areas
>> as I do not know them well enough).
>
> Land is not something that people made. It became property through a
> series of acts of enclosure, some of pretty dodgy legitimacy,
<snip>
This I am aware of ; and the particular hardships that accompanied enclosure
in Scotland and the colonisation of the area by lairds who drove out the
natives in favour of sheep etc. This they did to my ancestors in Malaysia
(except without the sheep). I even have a rather battered paperback book
about this (and social problems of rural Scotland in the 1930s) which I
picked up in some charity shop in Reading, being bored at lunchtime and
wanting something to read.
A friend of mine is rather like yourself (even around the same age) and has
expounded at great length about the injustices inherent in the remnants of
the feudal system; and I agree with much of what you are saying. On the
subject of subsidies, here in England the farmers have mostly got 100% of
f**k all at the moment as the computer system intended to pay them went The
Way of the Pear, they are decreasing anyway and farmers are /(finally)/
being forced to think about the environmental damage their business methods
often cause (not without much whinging).
However back to the Ridgeway in SE/SW England, in the 21st century. I've
checked out a lot of the farms and local businesses around there whilst
researching the background behind a rave organiser getting an ASBO; and
found that although large landowners *do* own the ultimate title to the
land; most of it is rented to smaller businesses which have to shoulder the
business risk - they *are* being squeezed by competition from cheaper
imports/all the usual stuff; and like it or not these local yokels do employ
people in the vicinity and have enough power to play nimby when they see the
Great Unwashed on their land in any kind of wheeled contrivance or even on
foot (like any other middle englander does nowadays) but at the same time
all the leisure users are just fighting one another...
What I am getting at is that the actual right of access to this land is
fragile enough as it is and all the conflict just seems to end up in yet
*another* activity being banned/controlled/nannied. I personally think the
fears of nimbys *are* mostly tinfoil helmet style paranoia - but self
regulation isn't working for anybody and multiple wrongs aren't making
anything right. But does anyone have a solution rather than just a
complaint?
Alex
--
Mr R@T / General Lighting
Ipswich, Suffolk, Untied Kingdom
http://www.partyvibe.com
