ROAM

A community-driven platform to advocate the right to roam and easy access to open space.

The Guardian Campaigners call for Scottish-style rights to reach nature, as figures show ‘hugely unequal’ distribution of access.

Most people in the UK can't access the countryside around them because of ancient ownership laws that keep us locked out of hundreds of thousands of acres of natural space. The Right to Roam movement is trying to change that, and we explored how technology could make it happen.

Locked out of our own landscape

The majority of communities and UK public are excluded from hundreds of thousands of acres of open space of woodland, meadows, rivers and their banks due to ancient laws of ownership that fail to recognise the importance of nature to the public. In 2000, the Countryside & Rights of Way (CRoW) Act gave the public a partial Right to Roam over about 8% of England, much of which is remote and inaccessible.

Designing a path forward

Through a week long sprint, we to put together a hypothetical design solution to bring our rights to the forefront. Our aim is to utilise contextual information and digital technology such as AR to advocate further movement, collaboration between the public, landowners and government, and tangible change in establishing a common right within the UK. By defining the issue, exercising our rights in a safe way, and opening a dialogue we can collectively facilitate a conversation on implementing into law through giving the public access and a means of action to the issue.