UKC

I think this is something that should be more widely known.

I live near Aldershot and recently there has been a lot of work by the MOD to make public access to countryside owned by them more restrictive.  For over 100 years public access has been allowed when not in use for active training. This is due to the stipulation that when the land was taken from public ownership and given to the military that there would always be the "presumption for public" access. However the MOD are conducting a "Bylaw review", which it is now apparent that the MOD are changing this to either remove or severely restrict public access. The actions taken around Aldershot are to be rolled out nationwide.

The minutes from a meeting of interested parties has shown the true intent of the MOD, see minutes here https://documents.hants.gov.uk/countryside/MOD-LiaisonMinutes-December2020....
Whilst I understand restricting access during active use, however it seems totally unacceptable to change the rules to remove access when it is not in use.
The MOD currently own about 2% of the UK.  Think about where you may go for leisure activities (walking/ cycling/ horse riding/climbing) and if it is military owned land?!

There's a few rarely travelled crags on the Otterburn Ranges in Northumberland that I hope to one day visit, hopefully this doesn't affect my plans too severely.

Thanks for that. As someone who grew up running around in the woods of an army training ground in that general area, the thought of being restricted to certain footpaths is rather upsetting. Of course, we may have been violating the strict bylaws 50 years ago... We never got any grief from the soldiers, even when they were actively in training. They tended to do all their flashbang and trip flare stuff at night; I don't ever recall that stuff during the day. They did do blank fire exercises during the day, which we sometimes observed from a distance. Maybe we didn't get any grief because we didn't do anything stupid, and mostly kept out of their way...

I find myself thinking of Range West and reading about needing to take note of any restrictions in place regarding climbing, if the change in rules the OP mentions happen, seemingly that could be the end of that for climbing there. 

There's no access to Range West at all outside of a specific access agreement so I doubt any changes would affect that, I would be more concerned about Range East IF OP were true.

Having read through the document it seems that protected areas would likely be SSSIs etc and there is an argument that climbing should not be permitted on some SSSIs due to the potential for us to damage them. The intention to roll it out nationally seems to be as the opening point of discussions, the BMC's access officers have a long history of securing access to crags in a pragmatic and ecologically sensitive manner and I trust they will do the same if the byelaw review affects crags/ threatens access in upland areas.

So just to give a little more context,  a lot (almost all) of the open space near where I live is owned by the military,  recently (the last couple of years) new barbed wire topped fences have been erected around them all, including most of the existing access points. Car parking areas blocked off. Basically a very passive way of preventing access.  There have been a few groups who have set up to discuss these issues with the MOD (or their management department,  the DIO), who issued flat out denials that there is a process of denial of access.  However it is coming to light that actually there is.  

This could be the thin end of the wedge when it comes to access rights.