UKC

This fell is owned by Hugh Lowther the earl of Lonsdale. The Lonsdale estate is large. Hugh is quoted in a northern newspaper as boasting that it was once possible to walk from St. Bees in SW Cumbria to Northumberland without leaving Lowther land. He is in dispute with the fell farmers around Grasmere who graze their sheep on other fells that he owns, over historical grazing rights etc. He wants the old rights to be changed.
He is opposed by the Lake District park people and most interested bodies.
Yet with the sale of Blencathra he says that whoever buys it will be unable to alter it as these ancient farmers rights are un-changeable, but those are the rights that he is resisting in Grasmere.
Locals hoping to buy the fell asked Penrith District Council to declare the fell a community asset which gives the local community certain legal advantages when it comes to the sale. The council were aware that all bids had to be put in by !/7/14 but refused to move their meeting about the community asset from 9/7/14. That could mean that the lack of community asset status protection could allow Hugh to get a better price.

In reply to mockerkin:

don't see how the hell he could OWN it in the first place.

In reply to mockerkin:
To be honest I think the best way to deal with Hugh is to laugh at his ridiculous attempts to bump up the price of an essentially worthless bit of land. He hasn't managed to build a wall round it and forbid access, so I doubt the fictitious Russian Oligarchs referred to in the local news are going to do that either. I think the campaign to raise a shed load of the publics hard earned cash to hand on a plate to a wealthy land owner is misguided, although I don't doubt the good intentions. Offer him £20 for it and leave it at that.

In reply to mockerkin:

I agree with everything Ridge says here.

In reply to mockerkin:

Yet with the sale of Blencathra he says that whoever buys it will be unable to alter it as these ancient farmers rights are un-changeable, but those are the rights that he is resisting in Grasmere.

That's his hypocritical side exposed.

In reply to j0ntyg:

I think that's a different member of the Lowther family - but yes, very clear demonstration of why who owns the land really does matter.

In reply to Removed Userlfenbo:

Here you go - have a read

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_land_law

In reply to j0ntyg:

He's a flippin aristocrat - that family have a long history of being bounders and a cads (read about conditions in the West Cumberland coal mines) - personally I wonder if the Buy Blencathra effort will succeed - I initially thought it would, but I'm not so sure now (hopefully I'll be wrong).