War over our coastal paths! They've been loved by the public for generations for their bracing air and stunning views. But suddenly more and more are being fenced off by wealthy landowners whose message is effectively: PLEBS KEEP OUT

For more than 20 years, Clare and Matt Kennedy-Smith and their two daughters have marked every special occasion – from Christmas Day to Easter Sunday, plus birthdays and anniversaries – with a family walk along the Glendorgal Headland, close to their home in Newquay.

Clare and Matt, both 50-year-old teachers, could also be found walking their dog along the idyllic Cornish coastal path, leading to the sands of Porth Beach, a couple of times every week.

However, this family tradition came to a grinding halt on May 8 this year, when they arrived at the foot of the stone steps leading to the headland and found a locked gate installed.

The Kennedy-Smiths and other locals, generations of whom have used the coastal path, were now barred from entering.

Soon afterwards the wooden gate was replaced by a sturdier steel one bearing 'Keep Out' and 'Private Land' notices.

Without warning, the company that bought the land leading to the headland in 2024, Bluechip Hotels Ltd, had decided to block off the path. 

Having replaced an old, defunct hotel called the Glendorgal, Bluechip had built two houses and ten holiday homes on the site, and were now declaring that only those who lived in or rented them could walk a route that had been open for decades.

'Everyone was incredibly sad,' says Matt, who grew up in Newquay and, after serving in the military, returned 24 years ago to raise a family with Clare.

The Glendorgal Hotel was previously a Victorian gentlemen's residence and shared the same sea views as the coastal path but is now being redeveloped

'People with mental health issues described it as one of the only places they could find peace, while others, like us, shared memories of walks with their children and dogs.'

Matt adds: 'It's part of the coast path. Access [to the coast] is surely a right of everyone living in the British Isles.'

Indeed, having access to our coastline is something endorsed by our very own King.

In March, King Charles officially inaugurated the King Charles III England Coast Path, allowing walkers to explore all 2,689 miles of England's shoreline on a continuous trail.

Now, however, hikers in Cornwall are forced off the coastal edge, onto nearby roads or down onto the beach, at low tide.

It was only when the Kennedy-Smiths chatted to other locals that they discovered just how many other people were devastated by the loss of access to an area which holds so many memories.

Refusing to let it lie, they started a campaign to reopen the path. 

Setting up a website to canvas opinion, they 'got hundreds of messages from people who shared stories of having proposed to spouses, scattered loved ones' ashes or had wedding photos taken on the headland'.

Landowner Seamus Redmond of Bluechip Hotels Limited, was granted conditional planning permission last year for the £9.5-million redevelopment of the Glendorgal Hotel (pictured)

'A paramedic described how he had once used the coastal path to reach, and save, someone who was planning to jump off a nearby cliff. Even fishermen told of how they had used it for decades as a lookout point.'

Yet none of these moving accounts from locals made a difference. Indeed the owner of Bluechip Hotels, Seamus Redmond, instead came out fighting, commenting on a Facebook post decrying the 'fencing off': 'There was no right of way.

'It is private property and anyone who is using it or has been using it is trespassing.'

When Matt responded, saying it was 'a favourite walk of ours', Redmond threw down the gauntlet: 'Buy one of the properties and have exclusive rights of way included in the purchase price. Let me know if you're interested!'

Purchase prices, incidentally, for a three bedroom, two en-suite bathroom townhouse, with 'direct access to Porth beach and the South-West Coast path' start at a not inconsiderable £395,000.

Two of the detached properties were listed for £750,000. Designed to blend into the landscape for privacy, with three en-suite bedrooms, they are now described as 'no longer on the market'.

Only those lucky enough to own one of these premium pads can now enjoy what estate agents describe as 'possibly the best views in Newquay'.

Redmond's association with the headland also goes back decades. 

Wooden planks had been used to cover another entrance to the Cornish coastal path, which residents said had been in use for more than a century

The path, which had been used for generations, is now blocked with a gate and sign reading: 'Private land. No public right of way.'

Before Bluechip Hotels bought the land in 2024, it had been owned for about 25 years by the now dissolved Glendorgal Management Ltd, of which Redmond was also a director. 

This summer he insisted in comments on Facebook that 'the path has not been publicly used for 20 years'. 

He also claimed 'we are now faced with people vandalising our property which is also our home. Sick or what?'

He went on to add: 'It has always been private and will always be private. You have no right whatsoever to come onto our land. 

'You are trespassing in other words and creating or inciting criminal damage which has already occurred. 

'CCTV cameras are in operation and will be used in bringing prosecution against anyone who attempts to enter our property illegally.'

Matt is unaware of any acts of vandalism on the site and says that, far from waging a war with its owners, he and his fellow campaigners simply want restored access to a precious local route and coastline view. 

'We're well aware that all land in Britain is owned by somebody, whether it's English Heritage, the National Trust, or private landowners, but that doesn't mean there aren't rights of way,' he says. 'It's hard not to see this as an act of greed, on the owners' part.

Residents previously fought a campaign for access to pathways in 1882, rebuffing the then-landowner and Liberal MP to maintain the freedom to walk there

Without warning, the company that bought the land leading to the headland in 2024, Bluechip Hotels Ltd, had decided to block off the path

'We locals, commoners, have had something which enhances so many lives taken away from us by rich landlords. There's a real sense of loss and injustice among locals.'

Hardly surprising, given that a survey of supporters found more than half used the path weekly, while almost 14 per cent walked it daily, some saying they had done so since the 1960s. 

Clearly this makes a nonsense of Redmond's claims that the path has not been publicly used for two decades.

Shocking though this turn of events may be, Newquay is not the only place where residents have found themselves suddenly barred by wealthy landowners from accessing precious local spots.

So are we witnessing the increasing 'enclosure' of public beauty spots by private owners? Or are local campaigners becoming more professional – and vocal – in their fight back? And more to the point, who is winning?

Take the residents of one of Britain's most elite neighbourhoods – Sandbanks, in Poole, Dorset – who last summer found a 40ft timber barrier at one end of what they had always regarded as a public beach.

Warning signs, alongside a security camera with motion sensors, stated 'private beach' and 'trespassers will be prosecuted'.

Locals were quick to describe it as a 'land grab' by millionaire insurance tycoon Ian Penfold, 59, and his wife, Camila, who bought their beachfront home in 2024 and put a stop to more than 80 years of public access to Sandbanks' northern shore.

The council backed the Penfolds, with an official statement that the sandy patch in dispute is a private beach. 

But angry residents did not give up so easily and clubbed together to hire a planning barrister. 

After months of research, legal counsel Merrow Golden concluded in June this year that public access to the beach does indeed exist – or 'could be argued' to exist.

Furthermore, she reported back that the private land ends at the 'mean high water mark' – the average height of high tides measured over years – and any part of the fence beyond that point should be removed.

Given the legal findings, members of the Sandbanks Community Group (SCG) which took up the fight, are now hoping the owners will either scale back the fence or remove it entirely.

Pippa Middleton and her husband James Matthews applied for retrospective planning permission after constructing the car park last year

If not, they intend to apply to have the public right of way legally registered so they can then take action with the law behind them.

Meanwhile, over in Kintbury, West Berkshire, Pippa Middleton, sister of the Princess of Wales, and her husband James Matthews, are awaiting the results of a public inquiry into their decision to put up an electric security gate on what locals claim is a 935ft long 'public footpath' on their £15.5million estate. 

West Berkshire Council found the route was 'reasonably alleged to exist as a public right of way', following complaints from the local ramblers group.

The public inquiry – held after Mr Matthews objected on the grounds of 'very real' security issues for his family – also concluded in June, though the findings have yet to be published.

As in many of these disputes, it's partly a case of he said, she said. 

The Matthews claim that any use had been too infrequent to justify making it public – but residents insist that when the house was owned by the late designer Sir Terence Conran and his wife, they had freely used the path.

To which lawyers representing the Matthews' retorted that Lady Conran claimed she'd only ever seen one person walking along it during her 30 years on the estate.

In Newquay, more than 95 per cent of those surveyed believed the Glendorgal coast path was open to the public and said they were never challenged or stopped while using it.

However, unbeknown to Matt and many other locals, when the official legal record – known as The Definitive Map, which shows public rights of way in England and Wales – was completed in the 1970s, the Glendorgal coastal path was not included. 

Barton Court estate in Berkshire is the £15million home of Ms Middleton, sister of the Princess of Wales, and her husband James Matthews 

Neither was the stretch of disputed beach on Sandbanks.

But so committed are the Glendorgal campaigners that this July, two months after the path was blocked, the group submitted a Definitive Map Modification Order application, seeking to have it recorded as a public right of way. 

The application was supported by Newquay Town Council and local MP Noah Law, and included more than 100 user testimony statements and extensive historical evidence showing that generations of people have walked around the headland.

On August 10, to the delight of locals, Cornwall Council formally validated the application, recognising that it contained all the necessary paperwork, maps and initial evidence required, by law, for it to be considered. A decision is expected within 12 months.

Local historians could be forgiven for thinking this latest battle in Newquay is a case of deja vu. In 1880, residents of Newquay won a campaign against Sir Arthur Pendarves Vivian, the local Liberal MP, who owned the same land and also tried to gate off the access at Glendorgal.

So great was the strength of feeling that a protest song was published in the Royal Cornwall Gazette. 

Two years later Sir Arthur sold the property and moved to Wales – local folklore has it that he was driven out. 

The land was purchased by the Tangye family, who seemed happy for locals to 'roam', making no attempt to block the path.

Since then generations of fishermen have used the point.

Indeed, this will be the first winter in more than 60 years that Dave Trebilcock, 77, hasn't gone up on the headland to check the water below for shoals of mullet.

'It's one of the main vantage points and, once we see the shoals, we head down to the beach and wait for them to move onto a sandy bit, then catch them in our net,' says Dave.

'According to the tales I was told as a lad, fishermen have been doing this for over 100 years. In fact, it used to be how they made their living in the winter, when their boats were too small for the rough seas.

'But last December, when I was up there, a man I didn't recognise came out and said: "This is now private property." I said to him: "We've been using this vantage point for over 60 years and our fathers used it before that. It's a public right of way."

'Five months later the gate went up and we haven't been able to go there since. 

'I can't think what would be behind that decision other than selfish greed. We're fighting it but, for someone who has lived his whole life in Newquay, it's hard to witness.'

As the experience of Sir Arthur being driven out of Newquay illustrates, when enough locals feel strongly about something, they are a force to be reckoned with.

This David and Goliath tale may rumble on for some time yet.