In bed with Madonna

Down on the farm the sons of the soil in Yorkshire have found themselves a new pin-up.

Pop star Madonna‘s picture is being hung on the walls of hundreds of Yorkshire farmers and landowners.
Madonna and her film director husband Guy Ritchie won the major part of their appeal against allowing the public access to incorrectly mapped land on their Ashcombe Estate, on the Wiltshire-Dorset border, under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.
There have been hundreds of similar appeals in Yorkshire where the law creates a new right for the public to walk over land declared as open countryside. In September parts of Yorkshire will be among the first areas in England to be opened for access.

The Country Land and Business Association (CLA), the foremost organisation representing the interests of landowners and rural businesses, welcomed the appeal decision.
“It highlights serious errors in mapping which the CLA first exposed in Yorkshire,” said CLA regional director Dorothy Fairburn. “There are hundreds of appeals in progress in Yorkshire which do not enjoy the high profile of the Madonna case. This was a victory for common sense.

From an article by Tony Harney, Leeds Today