To Win or Not To Win, a matter of percentage

The UK press is going crazy about the dispute on the Ritchie’s country estate – more than on the Slane Castle sensational ticket sale.

The reports are based on the same facts but, in some bizarre way, Madonna and Guy Ritchie are portrayed as winners or loosers in their fight, considering that 217 acres of the contested areas should remain private, with the public gaining the right to roam over 133 acres.

This makes the Ritchies appear as loosers to The Guardian (as they didn’t manage to ban ramblers from their entire property), and winners according to The Scotsman and the Glasgow Daily Record.

To read the Press Review please click on the Full Article link below.

Madonna loses fight to ban ramblers

Ramblers will be free to roam across 54 hectares (135 acres) of Madonna‘s £9m country estate after the singer failed to establish that walkers would violate her human rights.

While an inquiry yesterday ruled that the public had no right of access to 15 out of 17 pockets of land on Ashcombe estate, two tracts declared “open country” amount to nearly half the area being disputed by the Countryside Agency, and Madonna and her husband Guy Ritchie.

Her solicitors refused to say last night whether she would appeal in the high court against the decision.

Planners said they could not consider arguments concerning her rights to privacy and property at her 548-hectare (1,370-acre) estate on the Wiltshire-Dorset border. In his ruling, planning inspector David Pinner said none of the land he declared open country was within sight of Madonna’s grade II-listed Georgian mansion, and so he did not have to consider her claim that it would infringe her right to respect for her private and family life under the Human Rights Act.

Mr Pinner said Madonna‘s claim that opening up parts of her estate to walkers would also breach her “right to property” was “effectively a challenge to the [Countryside and Rights of Way] Act itself and to the whole concept embodied within it of providing public rights over private land”.

He added: “It is not a matter that can be dealt with in the context of a mapping appeal and it would be beyond my powers to consider it.”

Jon Gambles, of the Ramblers’ Association, said: “Some very significant areas of downland will be available to the public which is excellent news because it is beautiful countryside.

“The human rights issue was not an appropriate thing to bring up under the appeal because the inquiry was simply designed to discuss the accuracy of the Countryside Agency’s maps. I don’t think her personal rights to freedom are going to be upset by this at all. She lives in a large area of the country and people can be in it without inconveniencing her. The right to roam is all about responsible walkers enjoying the countryside.”

The 54 hectares of chalk downland designated open country will now appear on the agency’s conclusive map of open country, which the government will begin to declare open to the public on a region-by-region basis from September this year as part of its “right to roam” legislation. Almost 8% of England and Wales has been provisionally mapped by the agency as open country under the Countryside and Rights of Way (Crow) Act.

The dispute arose after the agency’s provisional map declared 121 hectares (302 acres) of Madonna‘s estate would be accessible to the public, including land close to her mansion.

In only the fourth public inquiry of its kind, held in Shaftesbury, Dorset, planners said they could not consider human rights arguments but must simply judge from geological and environmental evidence whether pockets of her estate could be classified as “wholly or predominantly” open downland or semi-natural grassland, which walkers would have a right to access under the Crow Act.

Madonna once said she had nothing “bad to say about the ramblers” and has maintained several public paths, including the Wessex Ridgeway, across her estate. But during the inquiry, her barrister argued that opening up further areas to walkers would jeopardise the couple’s work restoring the estate as a working farm and shoot. Ritchie, a film director, is keen on countryside sports, while Madonna has taken shooting lessons.

Article by Patrick Barkham, The Guardian

Madonna wins fight to keep ramblers off most of her land

Pop star Madonna yesterday won her bid to prevent ramblers from walking across most of her £9 million English country estate, according to the Planning Inspectorate.

A public inquiry has ruled that the public has no right to access 15 out of 17 segments of land within the 1,354-acre (548 hectares) Ashcombe House estate in Tollard Royal on the Wiltshire/Dorset border owned by Madonna and her film director husband, Guy Ritchie. The row erupted after the Countryside Agency mapped out the estate under the Countryside Rights of Way Act 2000 and said 350 acres (142 hectares) should be made open to the public.

Planning inspector David Pinner has now ruled that 217 acres (88 hectares) of the total 17 contested areas should remain private, with the public gaining the right to roam over only 133 acres (54 hectares).

A spokesman said that the Ritchies would not be commenting on the result of the inquiry.

Article by Rhiannon Edward, The Scotsman

Madge Wins Bid To Ban Ramblers

Madonna won her bid to keep ramblers off her land yesterday.

Walkers had been given the right to roam across the singer’s 1354-acre estate by the Countryside Agency.

But Madge and husband Guy Ritchie fought the decision to let hikers use rights of way at Ashton House on the border of Dorset and Wiltshire.

The Planning Inspectorate ruled in their favour after a public inquiry.

The public have been banned from 15 of 17 parcels of land the superstar couple had contested.

Madonna’s land agent, Philip Eddell, said ramblers would not be allowed on until next year at the earliest, when the final maps are drawn.

He added: ‘The two parcels that we lost are the farthest two from the house. It’s fair to say that we are very pleased, but the process is still going on.

‘For land management reasons, it might still be able to keep people off the land for part of the year or the whole year.

‘Reasons could be for people’s own safety while shoots are in progress, or for conservation or if there is a rare breed there.

‘We are not anti-rambler and people have always been able to walk on the land along public rights of way.

‘I don’t think that most of the land should have been included in the first place.

‘People are not allowed on to the land yet. There is still a long way to go.’

Article by Glasgow Daily Record