The reform of the CAP and other significant changes in countryside policies have given rise to a fundamental reassessment of the ways in which we use our rural land. In this book, Nigel Curry gives a full critical appraisal of policies and plans for countryside recreation and access. He proposes, in the context of rural restructuring, a range of new directions for policy and planning that will better serve the needs of the public and the countryside alike. Countryside Recreation, Access and Land Use Planning is structured around five main propositions: that the fragmented way in which agencies responsible for rural leisure are organized has inhibited the development of coherent policies and plans; that there has been a confusion between the responsibilities of the public sector and those of the market place and provision has been piecemeal and uncoordinated as a result; that policies and plans have, in the main, ignored the social composition of recreation participation and have failed to take people's preferences into account; that policy and planning have been concerned with the rights of the landowner and a fear of a recreation explosion rather than the development of recreation opportunities and as such, have been unduly restrictive; and that policies and plans for recreation and access have been given an unjustifiably low priority in pressures for change in the countryside, particularly in relation to those in the conservation interest.