Day 2. - On the second day of Christmas:

There is a continuing discrimination by government departments and pseudo government advisers against equestrians especially the Forestry Commission and the Ministry of Defence with the added support from Natural England. This is seen by the disregard they have in common in the permit schemes for riders on their estates.

It is compounded especially in the South, South East and South West and on Defence Estate managed land through the imposition of higher level stewardship fencing for extensive grazing schemes on the open and unenclosed heathlands. This funding is the only one available to help manage what is deemed to be some of our most at risk and specialised habitat. The problem is that the majority of the land is also some of the only statutory by right equestrian access land.

This has resulted in thousands of acres of equestrian access being fenced off from equestrians yet still open to cyclists and pedestrians even though equestrians have to pay for permits and the other non motorised users do not.

How is this being allowed? Ignorance or is there a connivance by the graziers and Natural England. The graziers have no legal interest in the land yet Natural England seem with government advice to be able to distribute European Union Common Agricultural monies to the graziers yet are not allowed to do it directly to the Government landowning department. This is money taken via ‘modulation’ another name for a tax levy on the support for farmers. If it was not it could be used to support food security and rural proofing.

This has also been the case with the Forestry Commission which though it started with South East Region based in Alice Holt is slowly being imposed elsewhere. The reason here is the unsupported premise that only equestrians cause damage to the forest tracks so they have to pay for mitigation and repair. No evidence of any money being spent on equestrian access damage has been forth coming except for Hodgemoor where the local riders managed to get a substantial sum from the Lottery Fund to make the forest useable again after many years of Forestry Commission neglect.

We now have the extraordinary example of public access forest at Alice Holt being granted SANGS status [Suitable Area of Natural Green Space] as a way of access developer contribution under the Thames Basin Heaths Special Protection Area. The fact that Waverley Borough Council has refused all private applications to date seems rather sinister. Even more so as the Forestry Commission is applying to the planning authority to rebuild the visitor facilities and car parks. With SANGS monies????

The British Horse Society has been campaigning for free access to the public estate to no avail. Could this exclusion of the equestrian public now be seen as discrimination under the Equality Act 2010? Figures indicate that over 20% of all riders suffer from some form of mobility impairment. This could include arthritis in the hands so making it difficult to open sprung gate catches or not being able to mount without mounting assistance due to for example a sport damaged knee as well as the more extreme and recognised disabilities seen during the Para Olympics.