I haven't got any views on this subject so I'm open minded and wish to learn. I have two questions:-
1/ to you Jill; doesn't the right to roam actually threaten wildlife and potentially disturb their habitats with increased footfall?
Potentially. But the UK is already one of the worlds most nature-depleated countries, even without the right to roam. That is on landowners, our agricultural policies, and our propensity to set aside huge areas of private land for the purposes of rich people being able to hunt stuff.
As in Scotland, the right to roam would have to be matched by a big campaign on how to roam responsibly. It requires a decent degree of trust in the population to follow that advice. The other idea is that exposing people to nature makes people more committed to protecting nature.
2/ to everyone else; when and where was the last time you had access denied which you desperately wanted to venture through?
The main issues I have faced have been wild camping where, after setting up tent for the night with my brother, we've been told to move on. I also remember me and my wife being confronted by an angry farmer in the Yorkshire Moors (near Hebden Bridge) after we tried to skirt the edge of his field to reach a green wooded valley so we could walk back to town. The alternative was backtracking across the country roads with cars whizzing past you at 60mph. In the end we basically told him we were going to green wooded valley anyway, but it wasn't a nice confrontation.
One of the issues of our current distribution of publicly acccessible land is that a lot of it is located in "islands" in which it is surrounded by private land. This means you need to cross private land to reach it. One of the points that right to roam campaigners have made is that right to roam is the cheapest and most efficient way to open up these areas. Trying to negotiate the distribution of accessible land with landowners across the width and breadth England on a piecemeal basis will be an expensive, time-consuming and bureaucratic mess.
Scotland has already shown right to roam works, so there's already a perfectly good working example we can copy right across the border. Granted, England has a lot less wilderness than Scotland. But that is why it's important people are able to reach what little we have. The benefits of exposure to nature on mind, body and soul are well studied.