Right to roam campaigners say hundreds of 'open country' locations are inaccessible to the public.
Around 2,500 "access islands" in England include stretches of moorland in Cumbria to fragments of downland, like this one in West SussexWalkers are being shut out of 2,500 landscapes and beauty spots where there is a right to roam but no legal right to access them, campaigners say.
Lewis Winks, who carried out the research which highlights a range of landscapes from Cumbrian moorland to Sussex downland, said it was "ridiculous" that people often had to trespass to reach areas where they had a legal right to roam. Victoria Vyvyan, the CLA's president, said: "Nobody is forced to trespass. It is a choice and millions of acres of land are publicly accessible without the need to do so."
The government said that, starting this summer, payments under the government's environmental land management scheme could be used by landowners to develop new permissive routes across farmland to link with otherwise inaccessible open country areas.Closed-off areas include downland near Kingston Deverill in Wiltshire which is surrounded by private land
There is no permanent public right of way to it but a spokesman for the trust that runs the estate said there is access agreed as part of the government's Higher Level Stewardship grant scheme.But Mr Winks said there should be a statutory right of access created, as "permission can simply be withdrawn by the landowner - it's just not the same as a right of access."
That is a review called for by many landowners and authorities responsible for managing open access land, including the South Downs National Park Authority.
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