Pippa Middleton and her husband James Matthews have attracted some unwelcome headlines recently. The precise facts of the matter are not entirely certain, but it concerns a small road that runs through their estate in Berkshire, which for many years has often been used by others in the village to gain access to a public footpath. The couple have closed off the road, forcing people to instead walk along a bigger road that is used by cars but has no pavement. Unsurprisingly, this has been met with vociferous complaints from many of the village’s residents.
It’s a common misconception that such a dispute could not arise in Scotland because of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, commonly known as ‘the right to roam’. In fact, though, the right to roam legislation is very different from access to public rights of way – a path may be a public right of way but fall outwith the scope of the 2003 Act, or, more commonly, land can be accessed publicly due to the provisions in the 2003 Act but
