How ministers squashed proposals to expand right to roam in England

Last year the government asked for big ideas' on access to green space. Now it is refusing to publish the responses

When countryside campaigners were invited to meet government ministers and share big, creative ideas" for structural and systemic changes" around access to green spaces, they thought it could be too good to be true. Was the government listening, and were England's archaic laws on countryside access about to change?

Last summer, groups representing more than 20 million people who are active outdoors, including ramblers, canoeists and mountaineers, were asked to speak to officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Treasury to explain how people are shut off from accessing green space because of trespass laws and other barriers.