A site of special scientific interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an area of special scientific interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of Man. SSSI/ASSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in the United Kingdom are based upon them, including national nature reserves, Ramsar sites, Special Protection Areas, and Special Areas of Conservation. The acronym "SSSI" is often pronounced "triple-S I".
This page gives an overview of the complex structure of environmental and cultural conservation in the United Kingdom.
The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 is an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom implemented to comply with European Council Directive 79/409/EEC on the conservation of wild birds. In short, the act gives protection to native species, controls the release of non-native species, enhances the protection of Sites of Special Scientific Interest and builds upon the rights of way rules in the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949. The Act is split into 4 parts covering 74 sections; it also includes 17 schedules.
A footpath is a type of thoroughfare that is intended for use only by pedestrians and not other forms of traffic such as motorized vehicles, bicycles and horses. They can be found in a wide variety of places, from the centre of cities, to farmland, to mountain ridges. Urban footpaths are usually paved, may have steps, and can be called alleys, lanes, steps, etc.
The freedom to roam, or "everyman's right", is the general public's right to access certain public or privately owned land, lakes, and rivers for recreation and exercise. The right is sometimes called the right of public access to the wilderness or the "right to roam".
The Cotswold Way is a 102-mile (164 km) long-distance footpath, running along the Cotswold Edge escarpment of the Cotswold Hills in England. It was officially inaugurated as a National Trail on 24 May 2007 and several new rights of way have been created.
In England and Wales, excluding the 12 Inner London boroughs and the City of London, the right of way is a legally protected right of the public to pass and re-pass on specific paths. The law in England and Wales differs from Scots law in that rights of way exist only where they are so designated, whereas in Scotland any route that meets certain conditions is defined as a right of way, and in addition, there is a general presumption of access to the countryside. Private rights of way or easements also exist.
The mass trespass of Kinder Scout was a trespass protest at Kinder Scout in the Peak District, Derbyshire, England, on 24 April 1932. The protest sought to highlight that walkers were denied access to areas of open countryside which had been fenced off by wealthy landowners who forbade public access. It was organised by communist leader and Jewish anti-fascist Benny Rothman, the secretary of the British Workers' Sports Federation and a member of the Young Communist League.
National parks of the United Kingdom are areas of relatively undeveloped and scenic landscape across the country. Despite their name, they are quite different from national parks in many other countries, which are usually owned and managed by governments as protected community resources, and which do not usually include permanent human communities. In the United Kingdom, an area designated as a national park may include substantial settlements and human land uses that are often integral parts of the landscape. Land within national parks remains largely in private ownership. These parks are therefore not "national parks" according to the internationally accepted standard of the IUCN but they are areas of outstanding landscape where planning controls are a little more restrictive than elsewhere.
Local nature reserve (LNR) is a statutory designation for certain nature reserves in Great Britain. The Wild Life Conservation Special Committee established them and proposed a national suite of protected areas comprising national nature reserves, conservation areas, national parks, geological monuments, local nature reserves and local educational nature reserves.
The Countryside Code is a set of guidelines designed for use by both the public and land managers across England and Wales. It is titled as a guide for enjoying parks and waterways, coast and countryside. It was established in 2004 as a relaunch of The Country Code, which existed since the 1930s.
A byway in the United Kingdom is a track, often rural, which is too minor to be called a road. These routes are often unsurfaced, typically having the appearance of 'green lanes'. Despite this, it is legal to drive any type of vehicle along certain byways, the same as any ordinary tarmac road.
The Rivers Access Campaign is an ongoing initiative by the British Canoe Union (BCU) to open up the inland waterways of England and Wales to the public. Under current English and Welsh law, public access to rivers is restricted, and only 2% of all rivers in England and Wales have public access rights.
East Pennard is a village and civil parish 4 miles (6.4 km) north west of Castle Cary, and 5 miles (8.0 km) south of Shepton Mallet, in the Mendip district of Somerset, England. It has a population of 348. The parish includes the hamlets of Stone, Parbrook and Huxham.
Walking is one of the most popular outdoor recreational activities in the United Kingdom, and within England and Wales there is a comprehensive network of rights of way that permits access to the countryside. Furthermore, access to much uncultivated and unenclosed land has opened up since the enactment of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000. In Scotland the ancient tradition of universal access to land was formally codified under the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003. In Northern Ireland, however, there are few rights of way, or other access to land.
Ramblers is the trading name of the Ramblers Association Great Britain's walking charity. The Ramblers is also a membership organisation with around 100,000 members and a network of volunteers who maintain and protect the path network. The organisation was founded in 1935 and campaigns to keep the British countryside open to all.
Right of way, is the legal right, established by grant from a landowner or long usage, to pass along a specific route through property belonging to another. A similar right of access also exists on land held by a government, lands that are typically called public land, state land, or Crown land. When one person owns a piece of land that is bordered on all sides by lands owned by others, an easement may exist or might be created so as to initiate a right of way through the bordering land.
United Kingdom environmental law concerns the protection of the environment in the United Kingdom. Environmental law is increasingly a European and an international issue, due to the cross border issues of air and water pollution, and man-made climate change.
The King Charles III England Coast Path (KCIIIECP), originally known as the England Coast Path, is a proposed long-distance National Trail that will follow the coastline of England. When complete, it will be around 2,700 miles (4,300 km) long.
Warleigh Weir is a river structure at Warleigh on the River Avon in Somerset, England, upstream from the city of Bath. The weir was originally built to supply a head of water to a grist mill at Claverton. The weir was subsequently raised by a height of 12 inches between 1809 and 1813 as part of the construction program for the Claverton Pumping Station, which sits on the site of the old grist mill.
