Lucy Walker: Frustration at fields filled with ramblers

With 20m people living within a one-hour drive of the Peak District, it sometimes seems like 19 million of them walk through our fields on a Sunday afternoon.

This is all well and good until the footpaths begin to look like the M1’s middle lane, with cyclists swerving in and out of the crowds. 

My least favourite view is of fields with rogue wanderers dotted about, miles from where they should be.

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About the author

Lucy Walker

Lucy Walker lives on a beef and sheep farm near Bakewell in the Peak District. The 17-year-old is studying A levels, hoping to be a vet. She’s an active member of her local YFC, dances, and works part-time in a pub. 

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When you go to assist these people, most are appreciative, while others insist they’re in the right place.

I find people’s inability to stay on the footpath frustrating. Those who drift from the paths fall broadly into three categories.

First, The Duke of Edinburgh kids with their soggy upside-down maps, who divert their route to avoid grazing cattle and clamber over barbed wire fences.

As they’re generally harmless, I smile and point them in the right direction.

Second, tourists who have no map and follow a cow or sheep track in the sure and certain hope it will take them where they need to go. Or they’re trying to vaguely follow a map on their phone.

The problem is, many apps are incorrect and people don’t have the ability to distinguish between a footpath, a parish boundary and a hedge.

Third, and most frustrating, are the local dog walkers. Some of these think they can go where they like.

They usually argue back if challenged, especially those who won’t keep their dog on a lead among livestock. Sadly, I feel their prospects of rehabilitation are poor.

As much as we might complain, though, farmers can take positive action. As a somewhat navigationally challenged person myself, I think we’re far too complacent in assuming everyone has a perfect map-reading ability. 

We shouldn’t expect others to know they’re straying off footpaths if there isn’t decent signage. Perhaps providing this shouldn’t be the farmer’s job, but if we don’t do it, who will?

Replacing broken signs and adding them where they’re needed might just be a step in the right direction.