In July this year British Cycling wrote to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and to the Welsh Environment secretary Lesley Griffiths calling for people on bikes to have responsible access to more public paths in the English and Welsh countryside.

British Cycling’s mountain bike leadership and cycle training manager, Nick Chamberlin, explains why.

The government’s publication Sporting Future - A New Strategy for an Active Nation (December 2015) highlights the need to ensure that the “natural environment is designed to make taking part in physical activity safer and easier, making activity the easy choice.”

At present, if you choose to ride a bike in the countryside you have access to less than a third of the 140,000 miles of public paths. There is also little access to the three million acres of Open Access Land or the 2,800 miles of newly created coastal access. British Cycling strongly believes that this needs to change.

In Scotland, the situation is very different with an innovative approach and people- focused access model. The Scottish Land Reform Act 2003 allows responsible cycling and mountain biking in all areas where it is not damaging to the environment or detracts from a shared and working landscape. This is joined together by the visionary Scottish Outdoor Access Code that empowers individuals and communities to use the outdoors.

Why do we want to make it easier for people to ride bikes in the countryside in England and Wales?

Because we believe that if someone wants to cycle off road and away from traffic, and live an active healthy lifestyle, that we as a society should be making it as easy as possible for them to do so.

A British Cycling commissioned poll by YouGov asked nearly 2000 people their views and understanding about cycling in the countryside.

The poll revealed that there was a huge demand for more cycling in the countryside with half of the survey’s respondents saying they would like to cycle there more, despite only 6% of people cycling regularly in the countryside.

The poll also revealed that a massive 70% said that you should be allowed to cycle on the majority of public paths, while also showing that 64% of people just didn’t know that they weren’t allowed to cycle on the majority of public paths in the countryside.

We are not naively assuming that cycling can be immediately accommodated into the countryside but we do want to see it being taken seriously.

We want to see proper investment in research allowing land managers to understand what a sustainable access model might look like for England and Wales.

British Cycling’s Mountain Bike Leadership awards stress the importance of sharing all of our wild places with other people as well as caring for the environment. Most committed mountain bikers want to see the places they ride protected and enjoyed and they would welcome evidence as to a way forwards to keep the conversation on access to the outdoors professional and constructive.

Earlier this year we wrote to the then environment secretary Liz Truss and to the Welsh environment secretary Lesley Griffiths calling for better access to the countryside for people on bikes and while the response we received wasn’t the one we wanted, British Cycling is dedicated to breaking down the barriers preventing more people from cycling and we will continue our campaigning effort until cyclists have much greater access to our countryside.