THE new right of access needs to be put into context against the cost to the public purse and individual landowners and farmers, and the benefits it actually delivers, according to the Country Land and Business Association.

Association director for Gloucestershire John Mortimer said people would do well to reflect on the £60 million spent by government departments on the Countryside Rights of Way Act so far. He said that, contrary to ministerial promises, individual landowners had been forced to pay to get land out of the mapping process by going to appeal when much of the land involved should never have been included in the first place.

""With 120,00 miles of linear access - rights of way - already in existence, plus a whole array of voluntary and permissive access arrangements, we remain to be convinced there was any real need for this Act," he said.

The association was trying to make the Act work as well as it could in the interests of members, Mr Mortimer said, but he stressed: "The one thing this Act most certainly does not confer on anybody is a right to roam. The new rights of access relate only to certain mapped areas of land, not the whole countryside, and even then access to these areas may be temporarily restricted."

He said the association positively encouraged people into the countryside to support tourism, recreation and leisure. "All we ask is that people remember that they are on somebody else's property, that they follow the country code and that they understand that, as well as being a place to be enjoyed, the countryside is also a workplace where a whole host of different activities will be going on," Mr Mortimer said.

For information visit www.countrysideaccess.gov.uk.