Nearly three-quarters of England’s woods inaccessible to public, study finds
Exclusive: Campaigners call for government to introduce right-to-roam bill that allows people to walk around their local woodlands
Helena Horton Environment reporter
Fri 13 Mar 2026 06.00 CET
Prefer the Guardian on Google
Nearly three-quarters of England’s woods are off-limits to the public, buried government documents show.
The study by Forest Research, which is a government-funded quango, found that 73% of English woodland is publicly inaccessible.
The research also found that more than a third of the trees on the Woodland Trust’s ancient tree inventory are inaccessible to the public.