GORDON Prentice is to tell ramblers this weekend that their campaign to win a 'Right to Roam' on uncultivated land is on the verge of victory.

Tomorrow, he will address a major rally on the issue in Northumberland and warn his audience to ignore threats by peers to wreck the Bill in the House of Lords.

At Warlaw Pike, near Blanchland, Pendle MP Mr Prentice, who led the campaign to give millions of walkers access to the countryside, said that now the Commons had approved the legislation Peers would not be allowed to scupper it.

He will say: "The Government is delivering on its pledge to bring in a statutory right of area access to over four million acres of some of the most beautiful countryside in England and Wales.

"It is not for the unelected Lords to try and scupper a policy which was spelt out in the manifesto on which this government was elected and which has huge popular support.

"The debate on access has often generated more heat than light, but once the new law is in place, people will wonder what all the fuss was about. The Bill offers new rights but also new responsibilities.

"The land is there for us all to enjoy providing we do so sensibly and with consideration. The Bill is packed with safeguards to meet the concerns of those who work the land and depend on it for their livelihood."

Before heading North, Mr Prentice made an attack on the landlords and farmers who had opposed the measure, saying: "Walkers and ramblers are friends of the countryside. They haven't poisoned the countryside with pesticides. They have not polluted the water courses.

"They have not silenced the countryside as the birds have perished. They have not grabbed up the hedgerows, damaging biodiversity and they have not sold green fields for development."