The proposed closure of the Ralli Quays towpath is a scandal (Developer given permission to close 300-year-old public footpath in Salford, 11 August). In 1932, the Kinder Scout mass trespassers could walk freely along the Irwell towpath from their homes in Manchester and Salford; it was the open moorland of the Peak District that was denied to them.
In 2022, the citizens of the Manchester-Salford conurbation now have a right to roam across the upland Peak District countryside, but the right to walk freely in their urban hinterland is being increasingly eroded by neoliberal developers and their collaborators.
This urban land grab must be stopped in its tracks. All those ramblers who seek to extend access to the countryside must join their counterparts, the urban flâneurs and flâneuses, and assert their right to walk along all urban towpaths. They should not allow themselves to be diverted on to backstreets or collude in the ever-encroaching depredations of the new enclosures.
The freedoms of our shared urban heritage and rights of way are no less crucial to our wellbeing than our freedoms in the countryside. Please show your opposition by rambling along Ralli Quays.
Julian Batsleer
Manchester
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