Kinder Scout 90 years on: UK’s national parks still largely white and middle class

Right to roam only covers 8% of England and national parks remain inaccessible to people from working-class backgrounds

Ninety years ago, the Kinder Scout mass trespass took place, a protest on the highest point in the Peak District in which walkers mainly from Greater Manchester trespassed en masse calling for greater access to the moorlands.

The mass trespass was instrumental in leading to the passage of national parks legislation and helped pave the way for the establishment of Britain’s first long-distance footpath, the Pennine Way. But the dreams of those trespassers have still not been fulfilled. In 2000 the Countryside and Rights of Way Act established a partial right to roam in England and Wales, yet it covers just 8% of England, with the rest still privately owned and inaccessible to the public. This month the government quashed a review of the right to roam in England’s countryside. The environment minister Rebecca Pow says there are no plans to release results of the review, a decision condemned by campaigners. Speaking on Saturday at a memorial event in Hayfield, Caroline Lucas, the Green party MP for Brighton Pavilion, said the decision was “disappointing” and “frankly shameful”.

The historic event of the Kinder mass trespass parallels issues of access to the great outdoors that are now faced by people of colour and those from working-class backgrounds. The British countryside is demographically more white than cities, with a Natural England study showing that only 1% of visitors to national parks are from BAME backgrounds. A 2019 Defra landscapes review of national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty (AONB) said: “It has felt as if national parks are an exclusive, mainly white, mainly middle‐class club.” The review proposed systemic reform of the governance of national park and AONB boards, stating that only a “tiny fraction” on such boards were of black, Asian or minority ethnicities. A research report by the Countryside Charity revealed the gulf between socially deprived areas and the countryside, highlighting issues such as poor public transport as barriers in access.