Access to rivers is a big issue in England and Wales. In Scotland, they have the Scottish Land Reform Act, which? encourages “co-operative use of the outdoors for healthy, low impact recreation”. In short, this means that in Scotland kayakers are free to use the waterways; whereas in Wales and England we often run the risk of being accused of trespass or being confronted by angry fishermen who believe that their fishing licence gives them sole use of the river. Many rivers are “no goes” due to unfriendly land owners, anglers or locals.
Luckily, we have an opportunity to stop this madness! If you believe that everyone should be free to use our country’s resources, please sign this petition. The Welsh Canoeing Association are doing a lot to promote this issue. Please? see this WCA Access Poster for more details.
Please, do what you can…
here in n ireland we have agreements with our local gun club and fishing club, when and where they are holding events and where so we can avoid them.in saying that you will always get the odd loner out fishing by himself who will grumble no matter what you do to accomidate him generally we smile and paddle on while he hurls abuse but mostly its all good. there are a few rivers where the locals still get upset but they are generally during certain times of the spawning season.the thing is they have no right to stop us and it is only a matter of us being understanding .the fishermen should realise the water is for all users not just them and that paddlers will bring support and money to the rivers as well as infastructure like access points and dry changing rooms. they need to learn to share and understand instead of being ignorant to everone else.