Farmers should take responsibility for the safety of walkers and the wellbeing of their cattle.

Incident number: 1007

Response ID: 307,707,670

Date of incident: 18.09.24

Location: SK142589 – Peak District National Park, near Hartington at the very end of Reynards Lane (Biggin Dale end) – immediately adjacent National Trust land.

Status: Two people with no dog on PRW

Leigh’s story

“We were walking on a very popular and busy footpath – well over a dozen groups of walkers, many with dogs, had passed us in the previous 15 minutes; including the farmer himself riding a quadbike. When we came upon a gate adjacent to the footpath there were a large group of distressed cattle that had gathered at the gate, bellowing very vigorously. A number of groups of walkers had gathered there, asking each other what had caused the commotion. We carried walking along Reynards Lane towards Biggin Dale, with the herd of cattle separated from us by a dry stone wall. As we walked the herd followed us. A large bull walked behind the herd and a numbers of walkers passing in the opposite direction commented on the size of him. As we were walking a number of cows were mounting each other, while others were feeding their calves. When we got to the end of the lane, about 200m further on, which then became a footpath, we saw that the farmer had left another gate to the field wide open, along with a gate to another field on the opposite side of the lane. Some cows were crossing the lane, others with their calves were standing in the middle of the lane, completely blocking the way forward. These being the same group of cattle that had been visibly distressed not five minutes earlier, we were very anxious about pushing our way past them. We waited a while until other groups of walkers appeared from the opposite direction, who in turn waited until more groups of walkers appeared. Eventually each group felt safe enough in the presence of others to walk forward, to which the cattle gave way, while still bellowing. It’s a walk we’ve done a number of times before and the gates have never been open. It seemed perverse to us that the farmer had decided to open or leave the gates on either side of a busy path in a national park wide open, especially since he will have been very aware that his cattle were distressed. Was he deliberately trying to cause on incident or scare walkers away?”

Leigh added “Farmers to take responsibility for the safety of walkers and the wellbeing of their cattle. In this instance the herd of cows, bullocks, calves and a bull were already in a very large group of connected fields with a water tank. If the farmer wanted to move them to the fields on the other side of the lane, why didn’t he herd them across? Why did he simply leave the gates open on either side of the lane when it was clear that the path was very busy, many groups had dogs and his herd were clearly distressed?”