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Comment by short_sells_poo | Hacker News Reader

The photo in the article looks amazing! You basically don't see a city, you see a vast woodland! An occasional rooftop peeking through here and there are the only signs of civilization.

I'd love to live in a place like that. London is a very green city by many standards, but it is nowhere close to appearing like the unbroken forest in the article. In fact, the thing I miss the most after having moved to the UK are the forests. Most of it is private and fenced off, and it's just tiny patches of woods anyway. It's interesting how different it is compared to Switzerland for example, where one can roam freely (at risk of being chased by an occasional herd of curious cows) and there are plenty of forests where one can escape civilization.

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I also happen to live in such area. It's nice, but there are also downsides – solar roofs for example don't make sense here.

That's fair criticism, but perhaps it'd be much more effective to have a few but large solar farms outside the city, no?

Or a nuclear plant.

Huh? I've read multiple times that in the UK, private land can't be "fenced off" and the general public has the right to roam on it, as long as they aren't causing a nuisance or getting too close to peoples' homes. Is that only for pastures or something?

> and the general public has the right to roam on it

There's no right to freely roam in the UK unlike Finland and other countries [1], although there are public footpaths/rights of way that cross private land [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam

[2] https://www.gov.uk/right-of-way-open-access-land/use-public-...

That applies outside of Scotland as far as I'm aware, whereas in Scotland there is a right to roam on all land as long as you're not disturbing housing/farm activities etc.

Good point

Generally, only undeveloped land is covered by freedom to roam. Forests, cultivated land and gardens aren't necessarily freely accessible by law, if they are privately owned they can be fenced.

There is much more expansive freedom to roam in Scotland, but then most of the land there is undeveloped anyway.

Only in Scotland.

sheep dictatorship basically

Only on established trails afaik. You can't just wander all over someone's property.

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