The upshot of this is that our very delicate ecosystem is being eroded. Because the soil is so very light it does not take much to damage the grass, expose the soil so that it washes away. It is the lightness of the soil and low productivity that has saved it from all but the very lightest grazing, but now we have walker damage.
At least the walkers seem to broadly stick to their self made path, but it is getting wider and perilously close to the area that contains our orchids. Oh, yes, and no ground nesting birds this year. The question is, what is to be done?
To that question we don't have an answer. One thing we did think about was planting a native species hedge, but the point of access the soil is too light to support anything but scrubby growth of things like hawthorn and field maple. Perhaps we just have to put up with it, but that does seem a shame, to just accept someone else's selfish attitude to the planet.