An erosion of our right to roam

From time to time I find myself having to deliver news of a house falling into the sea, or maybe several. On such occasions one tends to think it is something that happens to other people and is relatively unique.

But this weekend I found myself walking the coastal path from Swanage to Kimmeridge in Dorset. If you are visiting the English seaside town, don’t do it at the tail-end of winter. Poor old Swanage has more than taken its hit from the recession.

The pier head, so vibrant when I was a child holidaying here, is blighted by the abandoned cafe that once dominated the seafront. Some wisecrack has painted a vast photorealistic mural across the entire building as if devastated by a car bomb.

Durslton image courtesy Durlston Country Park

From the outset the signs were not good. Setting out to Durlston Head, the very start of the path – which I haven’t trod for a few years – the path is immediately closed, below some suspiciously recent and far from beautiful blocks of flats.

The opening bit of the coastal path appears to have been devastated by the lust for residential sea views. In return they aggressively guard their remaining lawns to prevent the traveller veering from the cascaded footpath up onto their land.

So I scambled through the fences and undergrowth to remain true to what once had been National Trust/public land.

But there are no buildings beyond Dancing Ledge and Chapman’s Pool. Thanks to the grim determination of the landed gentry to hang on to their estates, the private builder has been unable either to cake the landscape with bungalows or flats.

Here it is the sea that has tumbled the path into the water from a height that varies between 50 and 130 feet.

Chapman’s Pool image courtesy Wolfiewolf

This part of the path, too – one of the great wonders of the English countryside – is closed for more than three miles, and there is no alternative. So I took what’s left of it anyway.

The problem the National Trust has is where to run any new path – how far back from the cliff do you need to go? At one spot a plank in a small bridge announces it was moved in 2006. I’m afraid it needs moving again. And how accommodating will those landed estates be this time?

Dancing Ledge image courtesy Fiona Cowie