Kate Ashbrook has been general secretary (chief executive) of the Open Spaces Society since 1984, when she was appointed to turn the society into a campaigning organisation, defending people's rights to enjoy the countryside and lobbying for improvements.

She played an important part in achieving the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.  This Act gives the public freedom to walk on all registered common land and open country in England and Wales, and is something for which the society has campaigned throughout its existence. 

Kate is actively involved in other organisations.  She was appointed as a founder member of the board of the Countryside Agency, the government's adviser on rural issues, in April 1999 and continued until the agency disbanded at the end of September 2006.

Kate is also chairman of the Campaign for National Parks and of the Ramblers' Association,  president of the Dartmoor Preservation Association, and a member of the Institute of Public Rights of Way Managers.

In 2001 she pioneered the new provision of section 64 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 with three appearances in Lewes magistrates' court, prosecuting Rarebargain for illegal obstruction of the infamous 'Hoogstraten' footpath, Framfield 9 in East Sussex.  The magistrates exercised their new power to order removal of the obstructions and invoke fines, but the fines remain unpaid and the obstructions were not removed. 

So in 2002 she took East Sussex County Council to the Court of Appeal for failure to reopen the path and won, with a landmark decision to teach all highway authorities that they must reopen blocked paths not divert them.  The case led to the reopening of the path, after 13 years. (Link to report on this site, link to court report)

Kate says that her principal recreation is 'finding illegally blocked footpaths'.