Campaigners have taken part in a mass trespass in Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s Ashton-in-Makerfield constituency over the right to roam in privately-owned green spaces.
They walked on to the Winstanley Hall estate in Wigan as part of their calls for a change in the law to bring in a Scottish-style right to responsible access to land and water that is privately owned.
Right to Roam co-director Nadia Shaikh said they hoped the protest would get Burnham’s attention.
A spokesperson for developer Kingswood Homes, who are proposing to build about 400 homes on the land, said their plans included making more than 18 acres (0.07 sq km) publicly accessible.
The protest involved dozens of people walking on public footpaths and then going through a gap in the metal fencing around the site to access the private land.
Shaikh said there was right to roam access over just 1% of Burnham’s constituency and “so we are here to try and get his attention, and to talk about access in this way”.
She said the site should not be fenced off and the thousands of residents living nearby should be able to access it to have “a lovely one-hour walk that will just give people that sense of being in nature and calm”.