I share your distrust. I suspect that the improvements will involve a lot of orcish signs telling you about all the things you cannot do, or will be unsafe if you do, and the 'improved public access' will involve roads, carparks (pay and display) and fences.

We had one of these 'improvement' schemes near me: it has 'improved' surprisingly little for the price, and made a number of things worse.

grumpgrumpgrump