Over the years many guidance documents have been published, each of which have provided very detailed advice on what to do to improve access to the countryside for disabled people. In April 2023 the Outdoor Recreation Network launched a document entitled Outdoor Accessibility Guidance which was designed to make the outdoor more welcoming for all. This Guidance has a UK-wide scope and has been developed by Paths for All together with the Sensory Trust.

In 2026 Open Country decided to publish “Access for All – The Gold Standard for Access”, in order to provide simple, straight forward guidance on what needs to be done to enable Access for All. This document seeks to actively promote and encourage change by highlighting what people need to actually do in order to provide good access and then, as a bonus, provide them with appropriate recognition for their efforts once they have improved access.

In short, Access For All – the Gold Standard for Access:

1. Highlights the bare essentials that people require in order to easily access the countryside i.e. sets the standard,
2. Focuses attention on what individuals and organisations need to do to in order provide such access i.e. highlights the action needed.
3. Provides a system of recognition to those organisations and individuals that make the effort to achieve the Gold Standard for Access – enables individuals to highlight to users that their route meets the particular standard.
4. Indicates to users to identify, before proceeding along a route, that the route is of a standard that they can manage (there is nothing more frustrating for a disabled person than to get 75% along a route only to find that they are faced with an insurmountable obstruction).

Access for All – The Gold Standard has been designed to be self-regulated by those organisations and individuals controlling the land.  The Checklist has been designed so that individuals can quickly establish the Gold Star Rating for a particular route.  The Rating can then be used to illustrate the relative suitability of the route for any particular user.

Open Country would like, over time, to construct a national inventory of Gold Star rated routes and publish this on it’s website. This would enable users visiting a particular area to search for accessible routes to the standard that they can cope with before they visit the area in question.