England has a reputation as a tolerant society where going barefoot is accepted, but this needs qualification. It is actually deeply adversarial, and (like the New Guineans) the English have a set of psychological and social tricks to avoid killing each other. The following may be of interest to anyone involved in bare-footing or the barefoot scene.

Firstly, going barefoot is mostly a recreational activity for those of relatively high status. The English peasantry were dispossessed and destroyed by land seizures in the 18th century, and there is no tradition of going barefoot outdoors among the proletariat (this does not apply to Scotland, where the barefoot crofter has never died out). The barefoot girls filmed at the Beaulieu Jazz Festivals in the 1950’s were aristocrats. So, people going barefoot are more common in the wealthier towns, especially those with universities or yacht marinas.

Secondly, bare feet are routinely presented as, or regarded as, a counter-cultural statement. Thus, in England there are barefoot hippies, punks, Goths and biker girls. It is important to note that, with the exception of the last group, poor people in England can be violently hostile to devotees of counter-cultures to the point of bloodshed. It is not recommended to go barefoot in poorer towns or cities without checking with friendly locals first.

Thirdly, bare feet in chain retail establishments are now routinely objected to. This is not, in essence, the same as the neuroticism about health and status that lies behind “No Shoes, No Service” notices in the USA (although this can be a factor), but is a legal worry. The supermarket chain Tesco was found liable when a woman slipped on a grape and broke her pelvis, so it is now considered that retail establishments would be liable for injuries received by barefoot customers on their premises.

The barefooting hot-spots are:

Brighton. This is the town in England nearest to the Australian social ideal, of letting people do what they want.

Bath. Good for barefoot hippies.

Oxford. The most barefoot-friendly university city. It has wonderfully smooth stone pavements, as I can vouch. There is a story comparing it to Cambridge in this regard: A genius of a girl who was already publishing historical research while at school, went to her Cambridge interview with bare feet. She was gently told that Oxford was much the better place for “that sort of thing” (she had applied to both universities).

London does not see many barefoot people outside the parks in summer. The Underground (metro) is full of oxidised skin particles which turn the soles of barefooters perfectly black (I can vouch for this, too). However, it is a world city -and is perhaps the best place in the world to find fellow devotees for your particular fetish, whatever it may be. The English have taken on social connectivity in a big way, and if your “thing” is footing, gorilla suits, amputees or anything involving free choice and some mutuality, you should be able to find a friend here. If the nature of your “interest” rules out mutuality, then you should be able to find somebody in the sex industry who will perform for payment.

As regards pay sites on the Internet. The rise of smartphone connectivity has put pressure on the sex industry in England, as people are arranging their own recreational sex opportunities and making their own pornography. The mainstream media still has an evil streak of adversarial Calvinism, so there are regular scare-stories about the “millions” of pornographic images on Instagram, or how teenagers are now sharing home-made porn with each other without any interest in making money from it. What this means is that, over the last couple of years, subscribers to pay sites have been dwindling with the likelihood that the profile of the sites' customers might become more socially marginal and elderly.

I would say that the trends which you have rapidly but rather brilliantly outlined in the above part of your post are common to many other countries.
I have been a webmaster only since December 2013, so it's likely that I have never experienced the "bonanza" phase of foot-related adult entertainment (I think that Paul, Hal and Arnaud have much more to say about it, as they have launched their ventures in the early 2000s).
From my perspective, this is obviously bad news, and most of this "homemade" stuff is valueless shit to my eyes.. but it is evident that many people see things differently.
I am not into hijacking your post to raise a debate on such topic (even if it would be a really interesting one).. I am only throwing some random inputs.. for further discussion, should anyone (including yourself, of course) is interested in picking them up.
1) People who look for adult entertainment are more and more obsessed with interaction (even if it is a virtual one). They seem to take more pleasure in commenting each other's "masterpieces", or in bombing with messages their "heroes/heroines" on social networks, than in the actual content and quality of pics/vids.
2) These people tend to ignore/despise us "commercial foot porn merchants".. but what they propose in their "homemade" stuff is in most cases nothing but a scruffy and clumsy imitation of the stuff we have been producing and marketing for years. This "homemade" foot porn would have never come to light without the inspiration provided by Elmer Batters, Roy Stuart, Ed Fox and - in our "barefooting/dirty feet" niche - Paul, Hal, Arnaud, myself and a few others.

i live in Devon in the uk .....and i see lots of barefoot girls in summer.....i also live barefoot and work barefoot in Devon

Speaking of England, there was an eccentric site called London Pages. I remember it from the late 90's to the early 2000's and then it vanished. The man who ran it would stop women on the street, photograph their feet and then do a brief interview. He had a lot of pictures and interviews. I took this as a sign of at least how English women tolerate eccentrictricity. I also remember seeing somewhere on Cityfeet Message Board some time last year , the journal and photographs of an English woman who was a full time barefooter. As for English barefooters Sandie Shaw the folk singer from the 60's who was know for her bare feet. I can understand the class angle, I had a friend who came of age in the 60's. He quite bitterly remarked that he had to have short hair because he needed a job, alluding to long haired hippies with bare feet as rich spoiled dilettantes.

Are you on the coast (Torquay, Exmouth, Lynmouth)? I wasn't very impressed with the friendliness of Exeter when I visited years ago, but hope your experience is different.

I'm in a little village in the Surrey Hills near Guildford, with a large heathland and forest common where I can go barefoot for miles. The hobby barefoot scene locally is doing fairly well:

http://www.meetup.com/Barefoot-Walking-Surrey/

but the lifestyle barefooting scene is dead. I didn't see a single other person last year, going about his or her business barefoot. And I was barred from Nero's coffee house in Godalming for being barefoot -WTF?

I might post later what I remember as a child from the "chic barefooting" period in England, 1966 to 1973 (including Sandie Shaw and glam-hippies with pedicures)!

A lot of the London Pages photos were imported into Flickr and tagged:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/oldschoollondonpagespics

As you can see, most of them are feet in open sandals.

A high-profile recent English lady barefooter has been Bea Marshall of Sheffield. There are some good pics of her and her feet online, but they tend to be in newspaper sites. Try Google Image <barefoot "bea marshall"> rather than wait for all the adware to load.

She has several videos on Youtube on her campaigning and advice for single parents, but they (understandably) don't focus on her feet. Brief indoors shot here, at about 4:20:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTF4TazSG7E

There was another high-profile 24/7 barefooter in Newcastle, a sex-worker or escort called Tawney Steele. She has an interview on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqUDdUGK3gw

Unfortunately she is a mentally vulnerable adult on medication, and had some sort of breakdown or relapse in 2015 which led to the closure of her websites and deletion of her online barefooting material.

Interesting, I was in England last month, London and the South. Due to an injury I can't wear shoes. I was expecting some negative comments about my bare feet, but apart from the usual "Aren't your feet cold?" questions, it was a great barefoot experience.

And yes. my feet were cold lol

I managed to go barefoot in the forest all the way through February into January, when the temperature went below zero after 3:00. Being barefoot in the forest in the dark, when there is no moon, you immediately know when you are off the path!

I do wonder if the local dog walkers get spooked by bare footprints in the mud after the sun comes up!

Behind my university campus, they had a nature trail I knew nothing about.

I was stuck there one blistering July day for reasons I won't elaborate on, but there were no other students there because of summer break.

As it was so nice, I thought I'd just go for a barefoot stroll around campus, but then I found the hidden footpath, which was went on for almost half a mile. Some fantastic sensations were to be felt on the way.

The exit took me out into a busy street with a rough sidewalk. Nobody commented on my lack of footwear, but it should be noted that this was a landlocked part of the UK.

England is 99% fine, except for Tescos. They suck, but at least issued an official apology when a man in his 40s was thrown out of a branch. They gave him a free voucher as compo I think.

It's ironic though, how the affluent areas in the south are more tolerant.

@Timonenkarkku are you by any chance a musician?

i was in Scotland in 2012 for 2 weeks and it was very hot ......i saw a lot of barefooters in the city of Edinburgh .........have seen barefooters in Taunton Exater ....and sea side towns.....city center .....never been to ...... Brighton.......hope to go this year to check it out

I remember Tawny Steele. I'm sorry to hear that she had a breakdown of some sort. I did think she was taking a lot of risks with the way she advertised her services.

Yes, among other things! However my genre is rather a niche and there are not many of us, so I'd rather not say what it is.