https://nypost.com/2024/02/29/business/california-hoa-with-f...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/02/california-w...
https://www.hcn.org/articles/public-lands-a-battle-over-beac...
Bit of an aside, but although the area around Greenwich is lovely, I've always preferred walking the Thames Path out west, eg Putney to Richmond. Very peaceful and green, and IIRC all pretty accessible (apart from a stretch of the path near Barnes that is completely underwater when the tide is high).
I do recall several difficult bits in the area you describe. One part seemed to have some new "food market" development, which was completely closed when we tried to go through. It got weirder the further we got and we questioned whether we'd gone wrong somehow. Eventually the path just stopped forcing us to double back and make for the road which added a mile or two to the walk.
We haven't had any such problems along to the west, all the way to Maidenhead so far.
>City Hall sits entirely on a private estate owned by a Kuwaiti investment company. Protesters are not allowed to gather without corporate permission.
Which this?
They apparently moved the location, but protesting at the new location is still heavily restricted [0] with a dystopian narrative.
> In order to achieve the balance between the rights of those holding a rally and the rights and freedoms of others to go about their business we have put together this guidance and simple application process.
[0] https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/city-halls-buildings-an...
City Hall is no longer on a private estate, no Kuwaiti investment company is involved, and the application process involves no "corporate permission" - you submit a form to the city government, and it sounds like the point is to make sure each rally is allocated a separate area, and they don't deny permission outright.
> Every single thing in the text you (inaccurately) quoted.
Your first sentence makes no sense. It's quoted directly from the Guardian article, not from me.
> it sounds like the point is to make sure each rally is allocated a separate area, and they don't deny permission outright.
FWIW, look at the next article I linked. You're really understating the restrictions for a public, outdoor venue. This is on brand with restrictive public use.
- No noise directed outwards
- no noise after 6PM
- confined to two lawns (that can't fit more than 3k people)
- no sound speakers
- no overnight rallies even if quiet
- leave no trash
- no food for others
- you're strongly advised to fill out a notification form if your group is larger than a dozen people
Most of those restrictions sound pretty standard and reasonable! No amplification is the only one that I’d be upset about as an organizer.
I didn't remove anything.
It seems you're reading and responding to different discussions.
> London’s seat of democratic governance now sits entirely on a private estate owned by a Kuwaiti investment outfit. John Biggs, the London Assembly member, tells me he has been prevented from doing television interviews outside the building by private security guards who insist he needs a special permit; protesters are not allowed to gather without corporate permission. “I think that as active citizens we’ve got a reasonable responsibility to test and push at these public/private borders,” he tells me. “It’s clear we’ve got the balance wrong at the moment.”
You “quoted”:
> City Hall sits entirely on a private estate owned by a Kuwaiti investment company. Protesters are not allowed to gather without corporate permission.
That’s a summary! But not a quote.
Look again! [0] It's a tagline for a photo that you overlooked. Please take a break and go outside.
Or closed for years at a time due to construction.
My experience is that it works well in general, but some landowners are better than others, and some highway authorities (which enforce the laws) are more zealous than others. Most of the issues I see around me is farmers allowing crops to grow through low use footpaths such that they become impassable.
The other tricky bit of PRoWs is that any path used by the public for 20 years continuously, without force, secrecy, or the landowner's permission, is legally presumed to be a public right of way, even if it isn't shown on the definitive map kept by the local authority. That can lead to legal fights e.g. [1] and [2]. There are also 'permissive footpaths' where landowners have agreed to allow the public to pass, but not become a PRoW. There are also s106 agreements (planning obligations) where developers must allow the public to use land as a footpath. The Thames Path has a mix of these.
In Scotland, there is a more general 'right to roam' which allows anybody to access most land (excepting buildings and their curtilages, military sites, and other obvious exceptions), but there are affirmative duties to maintain PRoWs that don't apply to open access land making them still relevant. England and Wales have some limited open access land as well, but much much less of it. NI has no open access land and (subjectively) fewer public footpaths.
[1] https://www.ramblers.org.uk/news/ramblers-win-court-appeal-1... [2] https://www.ube.ac.uk/whats-happening/articles/pippa-middlet...