Landowners, walkers face off in tragicomic struggle, British style

Madonna's "Not in My Back Yard" case is becoming something of a cause célèbre. Mapping has identified 100 acres of her $16 million Ashcome House estate in southern England as common land to be open to the public. The star is appealing, arguing that her right to privacy would be violated by hordes of daytrippers in red raincoats picnicking just a few hundred meters from her front door.

The Ramblers' Association, a charity representing some 140,000 members and 450 walking groups across Britain, says that the land in question is at least 200 meters away from the house and that a glimpse of the star would be improbable. It notes moreover that ramblers are upstanding people whose presence might keep real villains and ne'er-do-wells at bay - a kind of private watchdog.

"The Madonna estate is very close to Wessex Ridgeway, which is a footpath that has been there for centuries," says Sharon Woods of the Ramblers' Association. "All walkers are looking for is access to uncultivated land. It's not about privacy."

The Countryside Agency, a government body drawing up the new map of land, says that exceptions for the famous would set a bad precedent. There are no shortages of celebrity landowners, from soccer stars to actors to any number of aging rock legends.

Mel Dapper of the Countrywide Agency says there will be certain restrictions on how close people can roam to dwellings. And landowners will be able to hang up "closed" signs on certain days. "If there's a [pheasant] shoot for example, they can close their land," she says.

And if there's a photo shoot? The agency says it is taking both the interests of ramblers and landowners into account as it remaps England. But sometimes it can get technical, turning on expert assessments of the type of grassland involved, for example.

Botanists have been drawn into the Madonna row to give verdicts on the disputed land, prompting inevitable "Keep off the grass" headlines.

But the bigger picture is not about grass types or pop divas, but an age-old English requirement to uphold the right of freedom of movement to enable people to get from A to B (or in the case of ramblers, from A back to A again).

Lincoln Allison, an expert in environmental planning and politics at Warwick University, says the issue goes back to the fact that land in Britain and indeed in Europe is treated differently from land in America. He notes that laws on trespassing are loaded heavily against property owners and in favor of the supposed perpetrator, and that notions of right of way have long been enshrined in English law.

"We don't look on land as a privately owned commodity," Mr. Allison says. "You have no development right - that belongs to the state. And in 82 percent of farms, you have no right to exclude people.

"In Europe, even quite conservative elements have no interest in a situation where you parcel off land into private property and say nobody is allowed to go here."

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