ocelot
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http://www.123people.co.uk/ext/frm?...hicalliving.pollution§ion=news&wrt_id=136
I copied this for your perusal.
Enjoy.....
The battle for Deadman's Hill
The Yorkshire Dales are in the front line in an increasingly bitter war between off-roaders who drive along its green lanes and environmentalists who want them banned. Hugh Wilson reports
* Buzz up!
* Digg it
* The Guardian, Thursday 6 March 2008
* Article history
Deadman's Hill in North Yorkshire is a place of bracing winds and desolate beauty. According to legend, it takes its name from a bloodthirsty 18th-century murder, but local campaigners say the only crimes being committed on the isolated moor today are against the tranquility of the
rugged landscape.
The "green lane", as campaigners refer to it, that runs between Middlesmoor in the Yorkshire Dales and Arkleside in Nidderdale, over Deadman's Hill, is a front line in the increasingly bitter war between those who want to ride and drive motorised vehicles on unsealed country lanes, and those who want the practice outlawed. The route is important to both sides. To motorcyclists and 4x4 drivers, it's long and tricky enough to present a satisfying challenge. To their opponents, it's a perfect example of what happens when recreational motor vehicles are allowed free access to roads that were not designed for them.
"It's a terrible mess," says Michael Bartholomew, chairman of the Yorkshire Dales Green Lane Alliance (YDGLA). "It's high in the fells, so the motorbike and 4x4 noise reverberates for miles. And a few years ago, the off-roaders made a great song and dance about repairs they had voluntarily made to the route, but it hasn't lasted. Now it's as degraded as ever."
The problem, from Bartholomew's point of view, is that one important avenue of complaint is closed to him. The YDGLA can't challenge vehicular access to the green lane on historical grounds, because records show that it was once a designated route for horses and carts. For the moment at least,
motorbikes and 4x4s will continue to traverse these moors on the grounds that, 150 or 200 years ago, more primitive vehicles did the same.
But if this is beginning to sound like the familiar story of plucky environmentalists fighting a losing battle to preserve pristine countryside from the ravages of "progress", it isn't. In this small corner of the nation's transport policy, the motor vehicle is in retreat.
Deadman's Hill and other routes have taken on greater significance because so many other green lanes in the Dales, and nationwide, have recently been shut to recreational traffic.
Much of that is down to a law that was quietly passed in 2006 when the Natural Environment and Rural Communities (NERC) Act slashed recreational motorised access to green lanes in England and Wales by half. Local authorities have also started to impose traffic regulation orders (TROs) to limit vehicle access on remaining "open" green lanes. Many new TROs will be coming into force this year - and the YDGLA will lobby the local authority to impose a TRO on Deadman's Hill.
In the Yorkshire Dales, it is likely to get a sympathetic hearing. The National Park Authority has identified 102 green lanes that are still open to trail bikes and 4x4s, a number of which are impassable or dead ends. Twenty eight have been labelled "highly sensitive" and eight proposed new TROs went out for public consultation in early February.
"While believing that recreational motor vehicle use of unsurfaced routes is inappropriate in the national park, we do recognise that it is a legitimate activity," says Mark Allum, the authority's access office. "There is consensus from all sides that it is an activity that needs to be managed."
But many recreational motorists don't see consensus in the Yorkshire Dales, just the gradual erosion of their right to enjoy a legitimate hobby. Groups such as the Land Access and Recreation Association (Lara) and Trail Riders Fellowship (TRF) claim to employ a "tread lightly" approach to the countryside. They have their own code of conduct for protecting green lanes. In the Yorkshire Dales, they say, they are being hounded out by campaigners whose modus operandi "is to obfuscate and distort". The worry for them is that other authorities will follow where the Dales have led.
"Ramblers have access to 100% of the rights of way in this country. We have access to 2%," says Simon Bingham of the TRF. "Most walkers will never encounter a motorbike, so why are some groups so desperate to deprive us of the little we have left?"
It's a slightly surreal reversal of the usual way of things, but over the green lanes issue, the motor lobby regards itself as a tolerant, abused minority, fighting a rearguard action against a powerful and dogmatic foe. The Ramblers Association bears the brunt of its ire, and the Yorkshire Dales is seen as an extremist stronghold.
According to Bingham, the only way the TRF can retain access to routes still open to it is to use them responsibly and fight tooth and nail against the imposition of punitive TROs. "There are criteria that need to be satisfied before a TRO can be imposed. We think that in many cases, authorities are using TROs to cover up their own inefficiency. It's easier to impose a TRO, for example, than to keep a green lane up to decent standards of repair. In that sense, we think many have been illegally imposed."
If the Dales are considered increasingly vehicle-unfriendly, the compromise reached in the Lake District is held up by motoring groups as a shining example of a scheme that allows all users to coexist harmoniously in the countryside. There, a traffic-light colour-code system categorises more than 100 green lanes and promotes responsible use, but none is automatically barred to motor traffic. Trail-bikers and 4x4 enthusiasts like the scheme. "You need to pose the question, 'Why can't the consensus approach in the Lake District be applied in the Yorkshire Dales?'," says Alan Kind, a spokesman for Lara. "You might find that some parties in the Dales don't want it because it works."
But some parties in the Lakes are not convinced, either. Judith Moore, policy officer for the charity Friends of the Lake District, has "significant concerns" about the monitoring of the scheme, the damage to routes in the fragile high fells, and the message the scheme sends to the off-roading community.
"It has led to confusion as to what is acceptable in the national park," she says. "I think we need to at least look at what the Dales are doing, because we don't have full confidence in the scheme here."
The Lakes and Dales represent two models for the future of recreational motoring on green lanes. Neither is even close to creating consensus. But since the NERC Act, both sides agree on the direction of the tide.
"This year could mark the beginning of the end for off-roading in the Dales," says Bartholomew. "Other authorities are watching. I think in 20 years you'll have somewhere like the Ridgeway in Berkshire, and the idea that once you could take convoys of 4x4s up there ... well, people will be amazed."
Bingham says the TRF will "fight to keep every green road open": "But we do fear for the future of our hobby. Eventually, trail riding could be driven underground".
I copied this for your perusal.
Enjoy.....
The battle for Deadman's Hill
The Yorkshire Dales are in the front line in an increasingly bitter war between off-roaders who drive along its green lanes and environmentalists who want them banned. Hugh Wilson reports
* Buzz up!
* Digg it
* The Guardian, Thursday 6 March 2008
* Article history
Deadman's Hill in North Yorkshire is a place of bracing winds and desolate beauty. According to legend, it takes its name from a bloodthirsty 18th-century murder, but local campaigners say the only crimes being committed on the isolated moor today are against the tranquility of the
rugged landscape.
The "green lane", as campaigners refer to it, that runs between Middlesmoor in the Yorkshire Dales and Arkleside in Nidderdale, over Deadman's Hill, is a front line in the increasingly bitter war between those who want to ride and drive motorised vehicles on unsealed country lanes, and those who want the practice outlawed. The route is important to both sides. To motorcyclists and 4x4 drivers, it's long and tricky enough to present a satisfying challenge. To their opponents, it's a perfect example of what happens when recreational motor vehicles are allowed free access to roads that were not designed for them.
"It's a terrible mess," says Michael Bartholomew, chairman of the Yorkshire Dales Green Lane Alliance (YDGLA). "It's high in the fells, so the motorbike and 4x4 noise reverberates for miles. And a few years ago, the off-roaders made a great song and dance about repairs they had voluntarily made to the route, but it hasn't lasted. Now it's as degraded as ever."
The problem, from Bartholomew's point of view, is that one important avenue of complaint is closed to him. The YDGLA can't challenge vehicular access to the green lane on historical grounds, because records show that it was once a designated route for horses and carts. For the moment at least,
motorbikes and 4x4s will continue to traverse these moors on the grounds that, 150 or 200 years ago, more primitive vehicles did the same.
But if this is beginning to sound like the familiar story of plucky environmentalists fighting a losing battle to preserve pristine countryside from the ravages of "progress", it isn't. In this small corner of the nation's transport policy, the motor vehicle is in retreat.
Deadman's Hill and other routes have taken on greater significance because so many other green lanes in the Dales, and nationwide, have recently been shut to recreational traffic.
Much of that is down to a law that was quietly passed in 2006 when the Natural Environment and Rural Communities (NERC) Act slashed recreational motorised access to green lanes in England and Wales by half. Local authorities have also started to impose traffic regulation orders (TROs) to limit vehicle access on remaining "open" green lanes. Many new TROs will be coming into force this year - and the YDGLA will lobby the local authority to impose a TRO on Deadman's Hill.
In the Yorkshire Dales, it is likely to get a sympathetic hearing. The National Park Authority has identified 102 green lanes that are still open to trail bikes and 4x4s, a number of which are impassable or dead ends. Twenty eight have been labelled "highly sensitive" and eight proposed new TROs went out for public consultation in early February.
"While believing that recreational motor vehicle use of unsurfaced routes is inappropriate in the national park, we do recognise that it is a legitimate activity," says Mark Allum, the authority's access office. "There is consensus from all sides that it is an activity that needs to be managed."
But many recreational motorists don't see consensus in the Yorkshire Dales, just the gradual erosion of their right to enjoy a legitimate hobby. Groups such as the Land Access and Recreation Association (Lara) and Trail Riders Fellowship (TRF) claim to employ a "tread lightly" approach to the countryside. They have their own code of conduct for protecting green lanes. In the Yorkshire Dales, they say, they are being hounded out by campaigners whose modus operandi "is to obfuscate and distort". The worry for them is that other authorities will follow where the Dales have led.
"Ramblers have access to 100% of the rights of way in this country. We have access to 2%," says Simon Bingham of the TRF. "Most walkers will never encounter a motorbike, so why are some groups so desperate to deprive us of the little we have left?"
It's a slightly surreal reversal of the usual way of things, but over the green lanes issue, the motor lobby regards itself as a tolerant, abused minority, fighting a rearguard action against a powerful and dogmatic foe. The Ramblers Association bears the brunt of its ire, and the Yorkshire Dales is seen as an extremist stronghold.
According to Bingham, the only way the TRF can retain access to routes still open to it is to use them responsibly and fight tooth and nail against the imposition of punitive TROs. "There are criteria that need to be satisfied before a TRO can be imposed. We think that in many cases, authorities are using TROs to cover up their own inefficiency. It's easier to impose a TRO, for example, than to keep a green lane up to decent standards of repair. In that sense, we think many have been illegally imposed."
If the Dales are considered increasingly vehicle-unfriendly, the compromise reached in the Lake District is held up by motoring groups as a shining example of a scheme that allows all users to coexist harmoniously in the countryside. There, a traffic-light colour-code system categorises more than 100 green lanes and promotes responsible use, but none is automatically barred to motor traffic. Trail-bikers and 4x4 enthusiasts like the scheme. "You need to pose the question, 'Why can't the consensus approach in the Lake District be applied in the Yorkshire Dales?'," says Alan Kind, a spokesman for Lara. "You might find that some parties in the Dales don't want it because it works."
But some parties in the Lakes are not convinced, either. Judith Moore, policy officer for the charity Friends of the Lake District, has "significant concerns" about the monitoring of the scheme, the damage to routes in the fragile high fells, and the message the scheme sends to the off-roading community.
"It has led to confusion as to what is acceptable in the national park," she says. "I think we need to at least look at what the Dales are doing, because we don't have full confidence in the scheme here."
The Lakes and Dales represent two models for the future of recreational motoring on green lanes. Neither is even close to creating consensus. But since the NERC Act, both sides agree on the direction of the tide.
"This year could mark the beginning of the end for off-roading in the Dales," says Bartholomew. "Other authorities are watching. I think in 20 years you'll have somewhere like the Ridgeway in Berkshire, and the idea that once you could take convoys of 4x4s up there ... well, people will be amazed."
Bingham says the TRF will "fight to keep every green road open": "But we do fear for the future of our hobby. Eventually, trail riding could be driven underground".
