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The Access to Mountains Act 1939: An Essay in Compromise

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2010

JOHN SHEAIL
JOHN SHEAIL*
Affiliation:
Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (Natural Environment Research Council) Email: jdbs@ceh.ac.uk
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Abstract

The Access to Mountains Act of 1939 has been ridiculed for the most part as a capitulation to landed interests. Closer reconstruction of the circumstances in which such a legislative attempt was made to extend the public recreational-use of uncultivated countryside emphasises the severe limitations of a Private Members’ Bill. Even greater skills were called for in securing sufficient consensus among the various parliamentary lobbies to convince ministers that there was sufficient accord to merit the use of legislative time and resources to expedite enactment. The Act's achievement was to ratchet forward both ramblers’ expectations and a greater preparedness on the part of landed interests to provide the recreational opportunity anticipated by a post-war, largely urban population.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , April 2010 , pp. 59 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

Notes

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60. The author is indebted to Dr Jeremy Burchardt for providing the original pretext for writing the paper, the anonymous referees for their constructive comments, and the assistance of the Official Papers Room, Cambridge University Library, The National Archives, and the Special Collections Service, Reading University.