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NERC - A RESPONSE TO THE ISSUE OF RIGHTS OF WAY.
People have been asking what about Green Lanes well here is more stuff:
We have had several false starts to have a dedicated MAG volunteer/s to take the "rights of way" lobby on within MAG.
Trevor’s time is stretched at the moment and he is not an expert on this issue although we are talking to individuals and the TRF for guidance to publish relevant information and lobbying details shortly.
If you think you may be off assistance please contact Trevor.
The TRF (Trail Riders Fellowship) and LARA, the Motoring Organisations' Land Access and Recreation Association is the national forum for the principal groups involved in responsible countryside motor sport and recreation are the "expert" lobby groups.
If you use a motorcycle "off road" then the TRF is the organisation to join to fight for your rights of way.
There is an information section on the MAG UK website under "Riders Writes" with links to LARA and the TRF and the
Bike and Enduro Magazine (TBM) Forum.
At present the BMF have details for lobbying on the issue -see www.bmf.co.uk
LARA
NERC is advancing inexorably towards what appears to be a spiteful conclusion.
With that in mind we ask that you write once more and alert the National Press.
Please explain this is a land grab for unsurfaced roads by Landowners and Ramblers and not about footpaths and bridleways.
Explain how the Ramblers already have 95% of trails and Right to Roam, how this will effect far more than trail riders, that other recreations will be hit.
Explain how some of the ways effected are even tarred, how many dwellings are on these ways and despite government assurances; they will be unable legally to drive to their house.
Explain that we believe the government intends uneven application of law enforcement until the lengthy and onerous procedures for obtaining private rights have been completed by each house holder.
Explain how a few vociferous anti vehicular MPs have mislead and hoodwinked the majority to rush the legislation through and the majority of both houses are largely ignorant of the truth.
That the government's own research and opinion of experts has been ignored because it does not support a pre determined aim.
That we are being penalised for complying with earlier legislation!
The destruction of our recreation will also economically damage small businesses in the rural areas NERC purports to help especially in the quiet off seasons.
Also make sure they understand that the relevant clauses of NERC (61 & 62) may, through their disenfranchisment of decent citizens and the historic failure to properly address past illegal vehicular activity, produce either a very expensive law enforcement problem or an unenforceable law.
Only now that legal road users are being banned from over half the unsurfaced roads do DFRA issue law enforcement guidelines.
Had this been done 20 years ago the problems of illegal nuisance users may have been avoided. All in all this is a spiteful government that will not tolerate activities it does not understand.
If you need to understand the details of how this will all happen please contact LARA www.laragb.org
Another useful website is at www.trl.org.uk
RURAL RIGHTS OF WAY 'UNDER THREAT' FROM NEO LABOUR
30th January 2006
Anglers, pot-holers, canoeists, birdwatchers and others who take part in country sports and recreations could find their access to the countryside curbed because of legislation being debated in the House of Lords this week, campaigners have claimed.
The Land Access and Recreation Association (LARA) says that rural property owners and the disabled could also suffer because moves in the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill seek to remove rights of way for motor vehicles. Peers will debate the Bill during Committee stage on Wednesday February 1.
LARA says the Government has gone back on its promise to have a timescale for users of byways to check the records and confirm their right of way.
Instead it is now proposing to backdate the new rules to May last year. The result is that rights of way that have been used responsibly for many years with no objections, will suddenly be removed without the users having the chance to verify their rights.
People who continue to use their normal route to access the countryside for recreation may find that they are breaking the law, says LARA.
Claims for access rights to private property will be allowed up until the start of the legislation, but they will not be automatic. Claims to prove rights of way may be submitted until commencement of the law but not afterwards and could take years to process.
If anyone challenges the use meanwhile, or after the start of an unrecorded right of way, owners will have to resort to costly court action as the only means to prove their right. Also country property sellers will not be able to confirm to prospective purchasers in the new Home Information Packs the legal right for private access by vehicles when the right of way has not been recorded.
Tim Stevens, from LARA, said "The Government had originally allowed 25 years to sort out the rights of way maps which are currently in a real mess. At the beginning of last year the Government promised 'a reasonable period of notice' for users to assist in this process by making claims, yet it now proposes to go back on its word by making the regulations retrospective, closing the door to existing claims.
"The result will be that recreational users of the countryside who need to use motors to access will now find their rights arbitrarily extinguished and there will be nothing they can do about it".
"The Government will only penalise responsible users of country lanes who want to keep within the law. The proposal will have no impact on those who flout their rights of way and churn up country lanes and in fact this will make enforcement more difficult."
Citation Source Pending -30th Jan 2006
INDUSTRY TO APPEAL TO LORDS ON GREEN LANES BILL
15th December 2005
In advance of the 2nd reading of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities (NERC) Bill the Motorcycle Industry has written to each member of the Lords in an attempt to prevent an off-road riding catastrophe.
The NERC bill which received its 3rd reading in the House last week, proposes the removal of vehicular access from any existing public right of way if access to that Right of Way is not already recorded on a county's definitive map as a BOAT (Byway Open to All Traffic).
The British government is already committed via EU dictate to reduce the number of vehicles on UK roads by fair means or foul, and off-road riding is clearly no exception to this policy. This legislation will result in large numbers of people being barred from fair access to large numbers of "green lanes" on the 5% of public rights of way which can already be used.
They have consistently taken away unqualified and absolute legal rights and replaced them with a quagmire of excess legislation and rights which are now "qualified", i.e. which can be subject to withdrawal or redefinition. Their motives should be clear in that at some point in the future there will undoubtedly be a 2nd stage review which removes these qualified rights altogether and makes off-road riding completely illegal.
This is a step-by-step, "stealth" approach to depriving peaceful minorities of a constructive recreational activity and is on a par with the wholesale destruction of playing fields and other recreational facilities by the current government. Many pundits have commented that even Thatcher would not have gotten away with these biased and unfair proposals. They may well be right.
NERC Bill and Trail Riding -URGENT Action Required
Trail Riders Fellowship - October 2005
The Trail Riders Fellowship is holding their AGM on Sunday and the results of the debate on the NERC Bill which is now proceeding to the House of Lords. The Bill (discussed below) in its' present form will stop all future claims for Byways and reclassification of RUPPS.
This means that at best all our pastime will have left will be those byways already mapped and possibly those claims currently being processed.
After over four years of hard work and negotiation resulting in a proposed sustainability process for future claims, our politicians have "knifed us in the back" and we could see in the very near future our pastime obliterated by the law.
What is the TRF Doing?
- They are lobbying members of the House of Lords, one group has already written letters to every member of The Lords.
- They are trying to get the Motorcycle Industry Association to get to work and use its' influence where it can and to alert dealers.
- They are seeking an urgent meeting with the Minister.
What Can You Do?
- Time is of the essence and the plan of attack is for YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY, and NEIGHBOURS, and ANYONE ELSE you know, to take action NOW, TODAY THIS WEEK.
- Contact you MP by letter , telephone, fax , email or if at all possible, and the best way, in person and make clear that the removal of these rights of way and future claims is wrong, will not curb the illegal riding problems, affects not only trail riders, but also walkers and cyclists.
- Contact your nearest member of The House of Lords and make the same argument.
- Present any other personal reasons why you oppose this Bill.
- If you are involved in Byway claim research, get your claim in now -if for any reason it is rejected, contact Tim Stevens with the reasons for rejection for further advice.
- Explain to your MP / House of Lords that the proper, sane way forward is for Defra and The Minister to drop the clause in this bill that will curtail future claims, and to reopen meaningful negotiations with the TRF on how best to manage sustainable byways and future claims. Do your utmost now to convince your MP of this and we could yet have a trail riding future.
- Contact your local dealer, make them realise the seriousness of this, the sales they will lose and the knock on effect on enduro, trials and all forms of motorcycle sport. It is clear we are the first easy target -but sure as eggs are eggs, other sections of motor cycle sport are in the sights of this government.
Thank you -The Trail Riders Fellowship (TRF)Andy Gerrard, Tim Stevens, Ian Packer, Arnold Brewer, Polly Cody, Fred Ellison and Brian Thompson, The TRF Executive Committee.
The Ongoing Legal and (Un)constitutional Abuse of Public Rights
"(1) Within 3 years of the date of commencement of sections 61 and 62 the Secretary of State shall review every modification order made, or applied for and subsequently made, in England and Wales between 20 January 2005 and commencement, under section 53(2) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, to add a byway open to all traffic to a definitive map and statement or to upgrade an existing highway to a byway open to all traffic. "
The sorry saga and decline of British constitutional law and the abuse of long-accepted public rights, including rights of vehicular mobility, continues in the House of Commons. Mr Paice (MP) discusses in Parliament with Sherwood MP Paddy Tipping and Lembit Opik.
The corpse of British Constitutional human rights continues to be hacked away yearly with the casual acknowledgement that such abuses have been commonplace for the past 20 years or so.
The most absurd but presumably "legal" quote from Mr. Paice is as follows...
[the].... "Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 ... amount to nothing more than an initiation of a procedure of ascertainment. That procedure has nothing to do with the creation of rights, and ascertainment is in any case available by other means.
Halsbury's Laws state that retrospection occurs when an enactment 'changes the relevant law with effect from a time earlier than the enactment's commencement' which is not the case here. The NERC Bill simply intercepts an ascertainment procedure and extinguishes such vehicular rights as may exist at the date of commencement. That is consistent with the aims of the Bill and does not impinge retrospectively on those rights."
"The traffic regulation mechanism has been in existence for many years, since 1984, for local authorities and the Government have already, in new clause 11, given that power to national parks authorities.
The whole House welcomes that. The principle of using a traffic regulation order to deal with abuse of byways, where they have become impassable and there are problems for pedestrians or horse riders, is already engaged in law.
The issue of human rights cannot be paraded as an argument against new clause 4; nor can retrospection, because traffic regulation orders exist already." (Hansard)
Notwithstanding the pre-existing legal complexity and largely bogus issues of damage which has been regularly substantiated as due to the massive increase in walkers rather than riders, this firmly establishes the concept in the public mindset that if you do not continually assert your rights then the government is saying "we will use the law to remove them from you".
Whilst the traffic regulation laws referred to give licence to the government's plans to enact these provisions they do not necessarily demand it. This is an important distinction, since what the MP here is effectively saying here is that "the public has no effective defence against us, we can do what we like".
Beware!!!.
We also have the issue that there appears to be some degree of playing riders' rights groups off against each other. Divide et impera (Divide and Conquer).
"I want to mention an e-mail that many hon. Members will have received in the past 48 hours from the British Motorcyclists Federation in which it supports the TRF. I was very sorry to read it because a reputable organisation has done itself a disservice by associating itself with the TRF. " (Paice -Hansard)
This is looking very much like a sneaky subterfuge using laws passed by the Tories in the 1980s. Not what one might expect from a party which claims to despise Thatcherism then uses Thatcherist era legislation to further the interests of it's favourite fringe groups.
Whilst there are claims that the new process of assessment is "weighted in favour" of classification of Rights of Way as BOATS this is not they key issue for those worried about abuses of constitutional privileges.
Once public rights are removed and replaced with qualified rights then we should all know full well by now how easily these rights can be removed at the whim of a Prime Minister who is increasingly acting as if he were the president of a New Republic!.
Once rights are subject to "approval" then this paves the way for their "non-approval" by a government which is utterly dominated by anti-road and pro-walking, pro-cycling fringe pressure groups.
We all know where that particular trail leads don't we?
Perhaps a "fly-on-the-wall" and rather more Pythonesque conversation on this issue might go something like...
Researcher: We have researched the issue of damage to BOATs or current rights of way open to road vehicles and we find that the bulk of the serious damage has, in actual fact, been inflicted by the huge upsurge in walkers and farmers using vehicles for essential agricultural duty such as farmers' own 4x4 and quad bikes. There is also the issue of lack of traditional maintenance and neglect of ancient which has arisen from the government and EU's continuously disadvantageous stance on British agricultural policy.
Add to this the decline due to the banning of foxhunting and other punitive measures against rural communities which have led to serious neglect and its clear that this law will do nothing to address the problem.
Minister:We will take steps to rectify the situation by using laws passed during the Thatcher era. Bike lobbyist: But... didn't you get elected to perform a u-turn on Thatcherist repression?
Minister:You will be better off after than before since it is easier for us to choose to create BOATs.
Researcher: But... the actual problem can't be solved by this legislation!. Your legislation will have no effect on one of the primary sources of damage to such "valuable rights of way". Pedestrians and cyclists will be exempt and the EU-led agricultural decline an destruction of the British countryside will continue, since this is a punitive law directed at the rights of access to motor vehicles not pedestrians.
Minister:Can't you see we are giving you more rights not less?
Bike lobbyist: But you're taking away absolute, ancient or pre-existing rights and replacing them with qualified ones which can either be "not approved" or presumably, withdrawn on a whim at a later date since they're not absolute rights any longer. And to top it all there is no possibility of overruling EU farming policy the CAP -which is putting both farmlands and ancient routes into decline in order to prop up continental farming!
Minister:But we're creating and passing more laws so -can't you see -you must be better off?
Researcher: But the new rights are qualified on the basis of damage yet there is no established proof that bikers are the cause.
Bike Lobbyist: You've created a legal framework to punish one sector of society for the failings of another. Surely this is a trojan horse where serious issues and concerns have been used to engineer the destruction of the rights of a sector of society?. Isn't that victimisation and oppression?
Minister:Nevertheless what we are doing is fully legal and cannot be countermanded by asserting human rights.
Bike Lobbyist: It may be legal but is it moral ?
Researcher: Hmmm... I wonder where this sort of concept is headed?
Bike Lobbyist: Having waged "class war" on foxhunting and now off-road biking who will be next?
Minister:Don't worry, we have plenty more areas of civil liberty like this we intend to "revisit" and "revaluate".
Minister chuckles and exists stage left - Byways Open (No longer) To All Traffic (Hansard) 11th October 2005
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