England's Inaccessible Woodland

England has 1.3 million hectares of woodland, yet almost three quarters of that is inaccessible.

Dappled evening light in a bluebell glade. The smell of resinous pine rising with the first of the day's sun. Gentle rain filtered through a canopy of dense leaves. Temperate woodlands can impress such vividness upon our imagination. Yet, in many cases, imagining these places is all we have. Not so long ago, woodland covered large parts of England, providing rich habitat for wildlife and food and fuel for communities who held it in common. Over the centuries our woodlands have been largely lost from this land, and almost three quarters of that which remains we are denied access to.

Across England 73% of our woodland is out of bounds to the public* - where neither footpath, nor access land, provide a right to experience these quintessentially magic places.

Removing woodland areas which either contain a footpath (buffered to 20 meters), or overlap to any extent with land designated under the Countryside and Rights of Way [CRoW] Act (2000) as well as open access National Trust and Woodland Trust estates, we can look across the counties of England to see exactly how much of their woodland cover is accessible.

*UPDATE (5/3/26): In 2023 when this post was written, I determined (using the methodology above) that 71% of English woodland was inaccessible. The governments latest figures added two percentage points on to this - this is due to them using a 10 meter buffer from rights of way, and - as far as I am aware - not taking into account National Trust or Woodland Trust access. Either way, access to woodlands is scant.

The picture on the county-level in some cases is shocking:

Here in Devon, for example, where we have over 90,000 hectares of woodland covering 13% of the county, 84% is inaccessible to the public. In Norfolk, 87% of woodland is inaccessible and 76% of Northumberland's 70,000 hectares of woodland is shut off to the public.

The upshot of this is that in spite of us being a nation of trees, for many people, going for a walk in the woods is at best a car drive away; or for those less fortunate, something seldom experienced.