Protesting about Motorised users being banned from Peak District Route

[David Sparkes]

The linked Newspaper report seems to give a fairly positive reaction to actions taken on August Bank Holiday Sunday. It was a Trail Riders Fellowship organised event. I was driving one of the supporting vehicles, and I am spreading the word in case any other 4x4 users want to add their support.

More action is in planning, but I don't have details to make public just yet.

If the full link gets truncated or split, use http://tinyurl.com/9zf6xct to access the article and associated comments.

I will appreciate it if people will indicate their interest in having any further updates posted here.

Thanks.

[David Sparkes]

I can add that Richard Simpson from TRF is due to appear on BBC Radio Derby, Phil Trow's Breakfast Show Monday 3rd September at 8.00am, pitted against a speaker for the 'Peak District Green Lane Alliance', which is a focus team for those groups seeking to ban motorised users.

Regards.

[David Sparkes]

Copy of request from PDVUG Vice Chair:-

From: PDVUG Nigel Bennett

Sent: 05 September 2012 00:13

Subject: [PDVUG] More 'Back to Tarmac' action days

Gents

The Peak National Park has embarked on a strategy of closing the best lanes through TROs. We are now limited in how we can fight back. One way is to demonstrate to the locals the effect on their villages of the Peak Park closing the lanes and forcing trail riders and 4x4 drivers onto tarmac only roads. [Not that we would necessarily want to drive on the normal roads but the average resident doesn’t know that.]

Given the relative success of the first ‘Back to Tarmac’ day on Bank Holiday Sunday, when mainly TRF riders (with a few 4x4s) massed in a few key areas of the Peak District, I am trying to encourage many more people to repeat the exercise on a number of Sundays during the coming months. The Bank Holiday event created some very good press coverage, so it will not have gone unnoticed by the residents and the Park officials. We need to capitalise on this.

The idea is for largish groups of bikes and vehicles to drive slowly at lane speeds on the roads between key villages and then fill up village car parks or mill-around in the village centres as we might do when stopping on the lanes for a brew and a break. But importantly, everything we do must be legal and we must be polite when questioned. We want to make an impact but we want to recruit the residents to our cause.

If we are sufficient in number, the effect will be uncomfortable for the residents, and by handing out simple explanatory leaflets we can get the message over to the residents and encourage them to complain to the Peak Park and support our plea to keep the lanes open and so keep us off the normal roads.

The TRF were in the majority for the Bank Holiday event but we need to muster the 4x4 groups and clubs to join in. One idea is for particular groups to ‘adopt’ a village or several villages as a focus for their presence to be felt. Examples of key villages are Brough, Bradwell, Great Hucklow, Great Longstone, Bamford, Hathersage.

We need people to commit to join this ‘Action Programme’.

Please pass the word amongst the trail riding and 4x4 communities to create the maximum impact and please can you let me know if there is any interest in your groups. The plain fact is without some drastic action, we will have very few lanes left to us by the end of next year.

We need to compile an email address list of all interested groups and clubs so that we can communicate easily amongst ourselves. I am kicking the process off today.

Nigel Bennett

PDVUG

Regards, David Sparkes.

[nickwilliams]

This is a REALLY bad idea.

As a resident of Great Hucklow (and member of the Parish Council) I can tell you that the chances of this having the desired effect of 'recruiting the residents to our cause' are precisely nil. The only result this action will have is tiddle off the people who are not normally affected by off roaders so that they become virulent anti's as well.

The idea that this kind of action will result in converting the view of the locals to favour trail bikes and off road enthusiasts, or that the local farming community will some how rise up in support of the cause is fanciful nonsense.

In the International forum there is a thread about the potential for new rules on MOT's to outlaw modified vehicles from UK roads. People need to realise that there is a substantial constituency of people out there who would like to see non-professional use of off-road vehicles banned completely. Currently, there is no easy way the government could do this even if they wanted to (it would require primary legislation which would be far to difficult to frame without too many unacceptable side effects) but the new MOT requirements provide a perfect opportunity for a ban to be introduced by the back door, and the government can even shift the blame on to Europe.

If you want to have a positive impact, don't send a load of vehicles with the express intention of making life difficult for people, send two or three well turned out vehicles with presentable, articulate and polite drivers and sit them in a prominent place in the village for a few hours so that the locals can come up and talk to you. Send representatives to parish council meetings. Give local people contact names and numbers where they can complain about problems and try to find ways of sorting them out. Find a way to control the idiots who drive too fast, in the wrong places and at the wrong time.

TRF and other off road groups need to work A LOT harder at winning the hearts and minds of local people.

Nick.

[David Sparkes]

Thanks Nick, I will pass your comments on. Some of them, like being polite, talking to people, giving out information, are things we already have on our list. We will give names and numbers where people can complain about problems.

The snag is, we have been polite, we have done the 'hearts and minds' bit, we have served as Conservation Volunteers for the Peak Park, and the walkers are trampling all over us, because they have concentrated on the political machinations.

Chapel Gate is closed, Stanage will be closed full time (after the current maintenance stoppage is finished), as will Roych.

Next is Chertpit Lane and Brushfield. The 'process' has already started on all those lanes.

In a time of general budget restrictions, PDNPA have allocated an EXTRA £11,000 over two years to close Green Lanes in the Peak Park

The main thrust of our actions will be to say 'We would rather be on the Green Lanes, out of your way, BUT, the Peak Park Authority are forcing us off the Green lanes, so we will have to use Tarmac roads to do our Recreational Driving and admire the views'.

If you haven't been involved yet, one of the arguments used by the NIMBYs and Tramplers is 'Why do they want to drive on Green Lanes, when they have all the tarmac roads to drive on?'.

Well, now they are going to find out the disadvantages of that approach.

You may not have noticed that they ignore the reverse question 'If you hate motorised vehicles that much, why not use footpaths instead of roads for your Recreational Walking?'.

As a lot of Recreational Drivers are not in 'the Parish' I expect we would get short shrift if we tried to speak in Parish Council Meetings, 'We haven't got 'the right, because we aren't local'. Perhaps I'm wrong, so how would Great Hucklow Parish Council, and it's public attendees, view an attempt by an outsider to speak?

What is the view of Great Hucklow Parish Council on the use of School Lane?

That's another on the list for the PDNPA to close, even though it has just had some long overdue maintenance completed by the Highway Authority.

Regards, David.

[nickwilliams]

David,

Just a note to say I will reply on these points in a few days, when I get time - responding to the DfT on the EU MOT proposals has a higher priority today.

I understand you are reasonably local - I would be happy to meet to discuss this over a pint if you'd like. PM me your contact details if this is of interest.

Nick.

[David Sparkes]

Nick,

Yes, I understand and accept your prioritisation.

I had also been thinking that personal contact might help, I'll PM you some details tomorrow.

Regards, David.

[nickwilliams]

Hi David,

Thanks for your reply.

I can understand the frustration that you and your colleagues feel, but I remain of the view that your proposed action will do much more harm than good to your cause. I say 'your' rather than 'our' because I'm not a fervent user of green lanes - I have my own land which is why I have a Land Rover, and while I do occasionally use green lanes, mainly it is because I have a need for access to the land alongside them and so even if the lanes are subject to a TRO, I would still be legally entitled to travel along them.

On the other hand, I am also a participant in a minority sport (potholing) and subject to some caveats which I will come to later, am firmly of the view that to be anti-off-roader would be hypocritical. Off roaders have a legal right to their fun, and that legal right should remain so long as it is not excessively to the detriment of other legitimate parties.

To respond to your points directly, firstly I should point out that there are significant numbers of people who raise objections to the use of lanes by off-roaders who are not local, and your action will do nothing to change the views of these people. Most locals are not the walkers who make all the fuss.

Secondly, and probably more relevant, the majority of local people are not vocal objectors to off-road users but they most assuredly will become so if you take action which starts to affect them directly. I am absolutely certain that the theory that by making life difficult for these people you will win them over to your cause is utterly misguided. You are going to make a great many more enemies than friends with this action.

Thirdly, this proposal is tantamount to bullying. You are basically saying 'you've made our lives difficult so now we're going to make yours difficult'. This is no way to behave in an adult, civilised society. I am afraid I do not agree that you've tried everything else and this is now your only alternative - if this truly is the case then you have already lost your battle.

Specifically with regard to School Lane in Great Hucklow, I am probably more familiar with what happens on the Lane at different times of day and year than any other individual - I am writing this message sat at my desk in the office at the bottom of the Lane and my family own property which borders on to it. My children go (or went) to the School which is half way up it. Notwithstanding all I have already said, I am of the view that School Lane is an archetypical example of a lane which should be closed to off-roaders and the TRF (and others) have made a significant error of judgement in trying to fight for it to remain open. It would have been much more sensible for them to accept early closure of School Lane in return for maintenance of Blackberry Lane which is longer, a much more interesting drive and (most significantly) sufficiently far away from any houses that its use by off roaders would not cause unreasonable disturbance. I cannot formally speak on behalf of the Parish Council but let's just say I would be surprised to discover that their view differed markedly from my own.

I have personally seen groups of trail riders doing wheelies up School Lane past residents' houses at 8:00 am on a Sunday morning, and at other times forcing their way past infant children leaving school in the afternoons. Neither of these things are pleasant, and the latter is completely unacceptable on safety grounds if no other. I am forced to conclude that the only way to be sure that the lane is acceptably safe for my own and other children is to close the top part of Lane to all vehicles then that is a price worth paying.

I have attended Parish Council meetings, first as an observer, and latterly as a Councillor, for over five years and the subject of off-road vehicles has come up at every single meeting I have been to. In that time there has never been an approach by the TRF or any other off-road user group to talk about the use of local lanes with the Council. Nor has there ever been any attempt to attend at the Village Gala to talk to people, or (as I suggested above) simply make yourselves available to explain your interests. On this basis, I am afraid I simply do not accept that you have done all you could do to win the hearts and minds of the locals.

As regards your attendance at a PC meeting, I cannot say that you would necessarily have a comfortable time, but if you prepared the ground suitably in advance then you would, I think, be given the chance to put your case and you would at least gain some respect for making the attempt to communicate. The bigger issue, so far as Hucklow PC in particular is concerned at least, is that because of the safety issue I cannot see you changing the view of the Council over School Lane and so far as I am aware all the other lanes within the Parish are already subject to TROs so you would probably be wasting your time. However, the principle applies to all other PC's across the Peak and I don't think you can genuinely claim to have done all you can to communicate your case to the locals until you have at least attempted to speak to all of them (or at least those where there are lanes under threat).

There is much else which could be said on this topic but it's late and I think I would only end up repeating myself. However, I will leave you with one final thought. I am absolutely convinced that the single most beneficial thing which off road users could do to help in their relationship with local people and other users of lanes would be to argue for and help to enforce a ban on vehicle noise which exceeds a nominal level. (I don't know what that number should be, but it needs to be comparable to a normal family car). Noise is the single greatest nuisance suffered by local people in particular, and bearing in mind that it is entirely possible to have a vehicle (motorcycle or 4x4) which is quiet (we do see some of them), it is specious to argue that the noise is somehow an essential part of the activity. Personally I like the roar of a well tuned multi-cylinder engine as much as the next petrol head, but even I could live without the racket from ten or twenty two stokes belting past my window, which happens here on a regular basis (by which I mean several times a day on many weekends).

Anyway, it's been a long day, and now I'm off to bed.

Cordially

Nick.

PS - for the avoidance of doubt, where I have referred to 'you' in the above, I do not necessarily mean you personally, of course!

[Nigelw]

you know, green lanes were what we called dry weather and sunny day drives, conditions under wheel pendant of course, but I am sad to say that some drivers have brought this upon themselves, laning in the wet when conditions that could cause damage were prevalent and far from ideal. I know that its not the majority and only the minority that have and are ruining it for the rest but thats the way it is, A lot of drivers who consider themselves green laners are more at home driving a pay and play course and should in reality stick to those and stay off the green lanes when its a wet autumn or spring and winter driving unless it's frozen should be very limited to dry and less damaging conditions not just driven with the plough on regardless.

I lived in Suffolk where lanes are not common at all these days and yet still the mugs were there with aggressive mud terrain tyres and lifted cars with winches and snorkels abound, tearing up the lanes as they went, I spoke to a few of them and was merely greeted with " what the f***'s it got to do with you?" I loved what few lanes were there to be driven and managed to get myself a pass with the Forestry Commission and was allowed to drive a lot of the forestry tracks and trails around Rendlesham, Tangham and Eyke, it was my privilege and I was proud to be able to drive and have only one vehicle as company if i wished as long as I stayed within the rules laid out by the forest ranger, and for this privilege I was described as "a brown nosing c***" just because I was willing to obey the rules and to drive in a respectful manner on the trails I was allowed.

I am actually thinking more along the lines of shut all of the lanes to the general public, walkers and ramblers too, make them privatized and then make folks pay a subscription to drive, ride or walk them, a non duplicate type key can be issued to subscription payers and then the lanes can be policed and maintained to a sufficient standard or shut completely to everyone not just motorized vehicles, lanes with access from a point where there can be electric barriers can also be closed off this way too and there are numerous systems in place that can stop smart thinkers who might try and allow a few more of their mates in on the fun too. I like the idea of policing them the most, not just from motorized vehicles but more so for the walkers and ramblers who actually think themselves above the laws of the right to roam.

Anyone else got any better ideas?