Footpaths – live and let live in town and country

Earlier this month, a friend went on a run along a public footpath. He was told in more than one village to go home. He encountered barbed wire on stiles and signs telling him to go away.

I had similar experiences at the weekend in North Yorkshire with keep out signs and was interrogated by a villager as to where I had come from. I also noticed that farmers are 
putting bulls in fields that have footpaths.

It is ironic that these villages have no shops so their residents will be driving to towns for their shopping – would they feel it was reasonable if they were turned away from shops for not being local?

Like many, I live in a built-up area. If I walk locally, I encounter many people. When I walk in the country, I see few. I am more at risk of contracting or spreading the virus if I walk locally than in the country, and the nation is more at risk if people are packed into urban parks than spread out on public footpaths.

Villagers may feel that visitors bring the disease, but as the Government advisors have said, the risk outdoors is very low. It is easy to give other walkers a wide berth and cover your hands when you touch stiles.

Most of the shops, cafes and pubs that exist in the country are unsustainable without visitors. When lockdown is lifted, the countryside will need visitors. The town needs the country and the country needs the town, 
can’t we be kinder and live and let live?

From: Dick Lindley, Altofts, Normanton.

CONGRATULATIONS to Boris Johnson on his masterful speech on May 10, about setting us free again while at the same time safeguarding us against this frightful virus.

He had a most difficult decision to make, either restoring some personal freedoms and some business activities to help the economy get started again or alternatively, as in Scotland and Wales, continuing a total shutdown of personal freedoms, culminating in a bankrupt Britain.

Every sane person will realise how he must have agonised over this speech. I, for one, sincerely hope that it is the correct policy and that the light at the end of the tunnel is not an incoming train.

Well done Boris.

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