Pendle MP Gordon Prentice will this week seek to force the Government to come off the fence over whether it will legislate for Ramblers' 'Right to Roam.'

He plans to exploit the current row over millionaire landowner Nicholas van Hoogstraten's refusal to allow access to a right of way on his Sussex Estate and the Government's own proposals for land ownership reform in Scotland, to attempt to get Ministers to back a statutory change.

Mr Prentice was meeting Environmental Protection Minister Michael Meacher today to urge the Government to support his Bill.

He told him the voluntary approach just did not work, adding: "There are 3.5 million acres of open countryside out there which are off limits, out of bounds and that has got to change."

The Labour backbencher will introduce a Private Members Bill to create a legal Right to Roam on Wednesday. And he will demand Ministers say whether they will fulfil their election pledge to change the law to give access to land where there is no good reason to restrict it.

Mr Prentice said: "I want to the Government to say what it's doing - to either back a right to roam or not. I don't want Ministers to say they are neutral on the issue."

He plans to use the blatant refusal of Mr van Hoogstraten to obey the law about access to the right of way at his High Cross Estate, in Framfield, East Sussex, which caused a recent major demonstration, headed by fellow Labour MP and Ramblers Association president Andrew Bennett, to back his case.

And he will cite Scottish Secretary Donald Dewar's plan to allow local people to buy land from absentee landowners and enshrine in law "a right of responsible access to land for informal recreation on enclosed as well as open and hill ground" to support his Bill.

He will introduce his Bill on Wednesday when it will get a formal First Reading with a Second Reading due on March 26.

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