THERE'S the old saying that if you can see Pendle Hill, it's going to rain. And if you can't see Pendle Hill, it's already raining.

But on a clear day on the top, and we do have some, you can get a good view of Blackpool Tower. It's 32 miles away as the crow flies.

It's said that nowhere on the British island is more than 70 miles from the seaside.

Wherever we live, most of us feel there is something special about the coast.

Over half the English littoral is open to public access - the foreshore, the beach, cliffs and dunes, and a strip on top of the cliffs or alongside the marshes wide enough to allow people to walk along the coast, possibly even a right of way.

But the rest is not. The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 ("CROW") has already opened up large areas of mountain, moorland, heath and downland, much of it round here in the Pennines.

One section of CROW allows public access to be extended to the coasts. Last year the Government asked for advice on how best to do this from its new countryside quango Natural England.

The board of Natural England agreed to put forward the idea of an access corridor or zone between the sea and the farmland or otherwise developed land on the inland side of the coast.

Such a corridor, based on landscape, wildlife and recreation, is almost certainly the best way forward. I had a question down on Thursday morning to ask the rural affairs Minister (Lord Jeff Rooker) for a commitment to carry it out in this Parliament.

I didn't get it. But the Government is going to start a consultation on coastal access at the end of March.

It really is time we all had a right to enjoy the seaside. Some of us will keep on pressing the Government until we get it.