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Letter in the local rag


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I live in Shropshire myself and have been greenlaning for the past 15 years, the last 8 of which i have been able to drive. I try to go out atleast one day a month just to do the local lanes, start at pulverbatch, across to church stretton, over to craven arms and sometimes over to bucknell.

When ever im out laning if i bump into another group i always stop and ask them where they are from and what route they are doing just out of curiosity

In the past 18 months the local council have repaired the lanes to the east of church stretton and i quickly noticed that the volume of traffic decreased. I have put this down to the lanes being to "easy to drive" and from speaking to other locals and greenlaners in the local club they agree. One group of people i met from birmingham asked me i knew of any "challenging lanes around here as now they are all boring" and if they knew they were stoned they wouldnt have come.

The knock on effect of this is since the lanes have been stoned people have stayed away altogether and the lanes that havent been repaired are very overgrown. Since the start of spring there has been a increase of greelaners traveling from miles away to do the shropshire lanes again, to be honest im not surprised about the complaint letter in the shropshire star as from what i have seen some people are going off the track looking for a "challenge" and the lanes that are overgrown are getting abused while the stoned lanes are untouched. unfortunately i think the lanes will either be closed or stoned like the rest of them.

The last time i drove the wayfarer i bumped into a group of people from liverpool that were trying to go off the track and across the hills, i quickly informed them of what they were doing wrong and the possible impacts and they apologized and said they thought they could go where ever.

The biggest thing i have noticed that makes a huge difference to peoples opinion on "greenlaning" is the vehicle that youre in. If i go out in a standard clean vehicle i will go across the top of the longmynd on the main road no one will even look at you twice, if youre in a modified, sticker-ed, muddy vehicle you will get unwanted attention. If i go out in my defender i will purposely avoid going across the top of the longmyd to avoid being in the public eye due to the nature of the vehicle.

Hopefully people will be more responsible in the future and this will just be another rant in the local paper.

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more blind bigoted bull,

Funny how those that preach honesty and freedom of speach etc. are completely bigoted when someone does something legal that does not match their view!

The first responce was good but the others just as blind!

Horses are good for the environment? round my way a lane was unwalkable for ten years due to dried up hoof prints in the mud, once driven it opened up two tyre paths that were walkable. local council cleared the lane and added foot paths to theside, local landowner drove a timber tractor down it and made a three point turn in the middle to undo all the council work and blame off roaders!

Honeest updtanding people?

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I'm all for vehicles driving greenlanes but some of the people driving them are giving us all a bad name! The last Sunday I went out there was a group of 12 vehicles in the car park on the longmynd and one of them was parked with one wheel on the wooden boundary posts taking pictures of the articulation.

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More than a valid point - any ammunition you could need to fight against greenlining is handed to the enemy on a weekly basis by our own side!!!

Responsible use of lanes has in my 29 years of greenlaing in Shropshire has never been hard to defend and any possible confrontation from other user groups or landowners has always ended amicably BUT to put it bluntly there are a lot of 4x4 drivers who lane and drive on the paved roads like knobs!

they get us all a bad name as it is all too easy to tar everyone with the same brush.

If you took your 4x4 head off and replaced it with a neutral one you would probably want it banning too. Green laning is the best form of offroading I have ever enjoyed ( home & abroad ) but it is the easiest one for mindless offroaders to get banned or closed down...

I fear the real potential for lane closure lies within our own ranks and not in the hands of some busy body with a bee in their bonnet! the state of the land around some byways where offroaders have left the lane and enjoyed a trash around proves this.

David

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You are of course right, as much as I used to enjoy laning and never got to do the classic lanes I gave it up in favour of private land instead.

It was interesting during the 90's that a major club tried both the softly softly approach and the in desperation bad press will bring it to a head.

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Bad press can be found for just about any occupation if you look hard enough and twist the story enough.

Local lane got a lot of bad press about 10 years ago with a lobby to close it "as kids are always racing motor bikes up it doing wheelies" it was close to houses and understandable the owners were upset, eventulally someone got hit by a bike and it came to ahead. Fortunately a council person rather than take the view of close the lane took the view why aren't the police doing something about illegal riding on what is legally a road. A few arrests later (easy to close both ends and no where else to go inbetween easily) and the problem just about stopped.

It is just about impossible to stop illegal activity, stopping legal use of a lane is very unlikely to stop the people who are already ignoring the law to drive off the lane and / or drive recklessly.

I used to shoot pistols legally, a sport that was totally stopped after one illegal act from some one that as the law stood at the time should have been banned but wasn't for unknown reasons (no official investigation held into issue the licence), a total ban was introduced with an inference this would stop illegal shootings, no surprise that since the ban the number of handguns used in crime increased, the law only effected those prepared to follow it. Hopefully some day I will actually get the compensation promised for the previously legal equipment I had confiscated in 1998 but not hold my breath!.

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