Viewing 40 posts - 41 through 80 (of 94 total)
  • Farnborough and Aldershot – MoD Land – Presentation
  • ninfan
    Free Member

    I know the ramblers have complained of ‘over-zealous’ landmarc wardens telling them they were not allowed to walk in groups on rights of way

    I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for that discussion 😀

    feary
    Free Member

    1 – You only need to give names if you are arrested. MOD / Landmarc cannot do this.
    2 – Only a court can issue fines
    3 – MOD land is public land.

    Stiggy
    Full Member

    Just come back from the meeting, basic synopsis: due to the influx of troops and machinery heading back from Germany bikeriding is only to be tolerated on roads!!! Some excellent opposition though and the main MOD representative wasn’t even aware of singletrack riding at Caesers Camp! 😯

    theotherjonv
    Full Member

    Couldn’t go, away with work. What happened? Is my Saturday ride needing a reroute?

    Feary; are you a lawyer /in the know on this? My understanding is that these are statutory byelaw powers and hence are enforceable if the powers decide to, including summary courts, etc.

    allthepies
    Free Member

    The synopsis is if you’re a cyclist then ‘get off moi land’ (apart from the tarmac road from twesledown to Aldershot)

    The guys presenting were just the mouthpieces. Someone up high has decided that bikers are unwelcome. Fear of accident liability claims was given as one of the reasons.

    cinnamon_girl
    Full Member

    I am sorry to hear that. 🙁

    chr1s
    Free Member

    Thats terrible news, any detail on how they intend to enforce the ruling and when its effective from?
    Shame they couldn’t introduce a permit to ride system that would cover the liabilities.

    idiotdogbrain
    Free Member

    I’m away with work as well so couldn’t make it.

    Is the ruling basically no off-road riding at Caesar’s Camp, Tunnel Hill, Porridgepot Hill, Minley, Ash/Pirbright Ranges, etc, at all? Just like that?

    Think I’ll be moving house if so..

    Simwit
    Full Member

    The synopsis was that we’ve not been supposed to ride on MOD land since the 1976 bylaws were introduced but due to returning troops & increased training we’re more likely from now on to be confronted by the army or their representatives & asked to move on. I personally don’t think things are going to change very much. We may get more grief during night riding season though if we ride through night exercises.

    shortcut
    Full Member

    I did go to the meeting.

    My understanding is:
    Lots of mil coming back – 27000. Some will be inAldershot or Pirbright.
    There will be more training on the land.
    There will be more big vehicles at Long Valley and Caesars – they are big so follow the green cross code.
    The Bye Law says no cycling – they are going to enforce this – because they have been instructed to.
    They can only enforce with the resource they have.
    They may warn you to move on – suck it up and do so.
    If you’re a muppet they will give you a warning off notice.
    If you gather a few warning off notices the police will be informed.

    So in the words of CTBM don’t be a dick.

    Oh and cycling is as bad as taking drugs and flytipping.
    And we cause more damage than horses.
    Oh and they felt ambushed by cyclists – they should have engaged with us then.

    Or maybe i had the wrong end of the stick so perhaps.
    Best get back over to Swinley and learn to like it.

    It is the end of the world.

    allthepies
    Free Member

    The offical line is yes, no off road riding is allowed on all those areas. Unless there is a right of way through the land and you’re on that (or a “metalled road” which the Army legal people define as a tarmac road but others define differently).

    And if you want to walk/run through the areas and there are six or more of you then you need to phone in advance and notify the bloke in charge 😆

    Rambler/runner groups have been asked to leave because of the above, they’re not happy either.

    thepurist
    Full Member

    Yikes. So it wasn’t so much a meeting as a public announcement. Feel sorry for the Trolls who’ve put so much work into the trails around there.

    idiotdogbrain
    Free Member

    I presume the above will also apply to the dog walkers and horseriders too then? That’s going to really suck if so.

    allthepies
    Free Member

    Horseriders require a permit to ride (this is the case now) and are not affected. Dog Walkers are also not affected (as long as there are not 6 or more of them in a group) but dog fouling was raised as a concern. They have been impacted by the Army closing off certain car parks but their access “rights” still exist.

    sadmadalan
    Full Member

    Another one here who attended the meeting.

    Firstly I was annoyed that the MoD only sent a retired Lt Col to give the presentation. He has no real authority to make any changes or to affect what is going to happen. His role as to tell us what decisions have been taken, not for feedback

    Secondly I was annoyed that he said that he was very busy doing these presentations and that he would be doing his fourth in Winchester next week. Fourth!! They should be aiming to do that number every week in the entire community that are located around the Army training areas

    My understanding of what happened last night. Troops are returning from Germany and from the operations in Afghanistan. This is a total of 27,000 troops. In the meeting they did not tell us how many extra were moving into the Aldershot area. I suspect not many, as the Army have been running down the facilities. In fact just down the road from the meeting is a large barracks which was sold by the MoD for housing.

    There seem to be two main changes

    1. The fact that the Army will be training using the vehicles developed for Afghanistan, which are very much larger than the the traditional Landrovers with poorer all round visibility.

    2. Some one in the MoD legal team has decided that there is a very much increased risk of legal challenges if someone has an accident, either as a result of Army training or from doing an activity on MoD land.

    In relation to the first point, the training land is already very heavily used, so adding more training to the areas is probably not going to happen. The type of training will change and as such access to the area while driving training is not a good idea. However this only really seemed to affect the Long Valley area, the rest is not affected

    In relation to the legal advice, there is very little that can be done until the legal advice has been seen. I suspect that it does not exist as there is an outstanding FOI request for it. The fact that the Army team presenting last night could provide no figures for any claims made by anyone leads you to suspect that no claims have been made.

    The main issue for the MTB community is that the MoD has changed their understanding of the 1976 Bylaws under which access is managed. Again this is via new legal advice (which again is not available even though a FOI request has been submitted). The main impact is for cyclists in that the 1976 Bylaws were drawn up before MTBing and as such cycling off road was not considered.

    I suspect that given the fact that the MoD have not used the Bylaws to stop MTBing on the area and the fact that there is legal precedents about what is a road mean that that any legal challenge will never happen. The Bylaws are being revised which will require a consultation process, but when this is, how we get involved, what are the timescales is not known!

    In practical terms I suspect that nothing will change and I will continue to use the land. The Army claimed to be unaware that so many cyclist used the land, a statement which was meet by loud laughter in the hall from all the user community.

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    Best get back over to Swinley and learn to like it.

    It is the end of the world.

    You know things are bad when Andy is considering liking the Stickler.

    sadmadalan
    Full Member

    And another point – the cycling community did themselves no favours with the other users. The attitude of many cyclists and their need to dominate the meeting put the backs up of the many others who also use the areas and have equal concerns. We need to work with all users (including the MoD) to make sure we all have access. If we isolate ourselves then the MoD can focus on us. There are plenty of walkers who already think that the MTBers should not use the area.

    onandon
    Free Member

    I couldn’t make it to the meeting . Really gutted by this news.
    I hope the dog walkers also get thrown off ie, one rule for everyone, not just riders.

    allthepies
    Free Member

    This is true. However the other users aren’t the ones being told they’re not welcome full stop.

    Simwit
    Full Member

    And another point – the cycling community did themselves no favours with the other users. The attitude of many cyclists and their need to dominate the meeting put the backs up of the many others who also use the areas and have equal concerns. We need to work with all users (including the MoD) to make sure we all have access. If we isolate ourselves then the MoD can focus on us. There are plenty of walkers who already think that the MTBers should not use the area

    Agree 100% with everything sadmanalan says, we lost the sympathy of many other users there last night sadly.

    offthebrakes
    Free Member

    If we isolate ourselves then the MoD can focus on us.

    This is a key point. The MoD approach seems to be to say different things to different user groups, and nothing at all to those they think don’t deserve a voice. Quite what they are trying to achieve isn’t at all clear – there was certainly no big announcement that I detected.

    The presentation, such as it was, clearly wasn’t aimed at an audience of MTBers and a large MTB presence took them by surprise. The Lt Col presenting realised this but wasn’t able to think on his feet and ended up alternating between telling us bikes were a big problem and anti-social, and then claiming he wasn’t even aware of us (to much derision).

    A couple of times during the presentation the speaker started to blame MTBers for various things, then corrected himself to refer to BMXers instead. I assume he thought there were no BMXers in the audience either (there were). Someone should tell him BMXing is not a crime!

    As others have said above, the true situation may well be “carry on as before”, but the MoD are never going to announce that. Some constructive discussions were held after the meeting broke up, I expect TAG will be commenting after a chance for calm reflection.

    All in all not an entirely productive meeting, and some MTBers did themselves no favours. But certainly a chance to see what is said about us when they think we aren’t present.

    If the MoD didn’t realise that they need to engage with us before, I would hope they got the message last night. Ditto for the local politicians. Won’t hold my breath though…

    scottfitz
    Free Member

    Was it mentioned about MTB racing. Gorrick etc…

    allthepies
    Free Member

    Not specifically, although as the races are licenced events and provide revenue for the estate then it would seem unlikely that they would be stopped.

    natrix
    Free Member

    Was it mentioned about MTB racing. Gorrick etc..

    That can carry on

    scottfitz
    Free Member

    So that will maintain the trail network if user drop off. If landmarc enforce it like they have done on Longmoor.

    Ewan
    Free Member

    It was good to see so many passionate mtbers at the meeting in Church Crookham with the Army last night, whilst the atmosphere did get a little spikey at one point, lots of moderate voices were head and I hope it will act as a wakeup call to the powers that be at MoD and they will now engage with MTB groups such as TAG.

    My main takeaways from the meeting were:

    * The MoD have had legal advice that if they’re ever asked they must reply “cycling off metalled tracks is illegal under the 1976 byelaws and the definition of a metalled track is a tarmac road such as Bourley Road”
    * Whilst they have to repeat the party line, they did say they would be enforcing it by requesting riders to move on. If the rider was disruptive “again and again” then a ‘warning off notice’ would be issued, if it happened again, another ‘warning off notice’ would be issued but it’d be up to the police to do anything more (they share the notices with the police)
    * The primary objective of the meeting from the MoD point of view was to warn the local population about increased use by troops following the return of guys from Germany (27k in total, presumably not all coming to Aldershot) and more importantly there will be several new battalions in the locale who will have very large military vehicles
    * They were particularly worried that their trainee drivers would be driving badly in 29 ton Mastiff vehicles with poor visibility and flatten a cyclist / dog walker
    * The main impacted area will be the driving training area in Long Valley that is likely to see improved fences etc and enforcement (to be honest the area in question has limited mtbing and is quite flat)
    * The Army are restricted as to which areas they can use as they’ve given a fair amount up to developers as ‘SANGS’ (when they build houses they have to provide green space proportionate to the residents) and they can’t use the red flag areas if shooting is going on
    * There is a consultation on the byelaws that will happen in due course but they couldn’t tell us when or the route by which our views can be made known
    * They are considering ideas about how they manage public access – zoning was mentioned. They will appreciate they will need to consult on these following last night.
    * Whatever they think about mtbers it’s nothing compared with how much they dislike dog poo!
    * 140 mtbers turning up made an impression (some good some bad!) on the MoD and they’re probably puzzling about how they deal with the issue

    TAG has got the Lt Col.’s email address and we’ll be trying to engage him directly about a way forward (if nothing else to show him some singletrack so he knows what he is dealing with). We’ll obviously keep everyone informed and we’d welcome hearing from anyone who wants to be engaged.

    Finally I’d like to ask all local riders to read the Code of Conduct that is on the TAG website – if we all follow this we will be able to reduce conflict to a minimum and hopefully avoid draconian measures.

    Ewan (TAG Chair)

    http://www.trailactiongroup.co.uk

    https://www.facebook.com/trailactiongroup

    ninfan
    Free Member

    The more I read into the byelaws review process, the more I’m convinced that this is behind it, not just for us, but for all the problems recently encountered.

    Hidden away in part of the of the MOD Byelaw review process pages is an interesting comment:

    • changes in de-facto public access need to be considered and incorporated in the byelaws if appropriate

    and I feel that this is essentially a ‘land grab’ to ensure that the de-facto public access situation that has developed over the past twenty years is excluded from that review.

    oh, and just to ensure that everybody knows what a metalled road is, its not actually what most people think it means – though to be more specific, the Byelaws actually refer to a road “constructed and made up for general use by vehicular traffic” which really isn’t very clear in its intention!

    offthebrakes
    Free Member

    I hope they will reconsider their views on providing information about upcoming exercises, many of us would be more than happy to avoid exercises and ride the areas that aren’t in use at any particular time.

    Whilst it is very easy to cite security concerns and very hard to refute them directly, if it was really an obstacle then surely the same would apply to Salisbury Plain.

    Yet there is a monthly Salisbury Plain Training Area Newsletter published on the government website giving detailed descriptions of planned exercises and the dates, units and specific areas involved! Hard to reconcile this with what we were told last night. I wanted to raise it but wasn’t quite sure of my facts.

    Yak
    Full Member

    • changes in de-facto public access need to be considered and incorporated in the byelaws if appropriate

    and I feel that this is essentially a ‘land grab’ to ensure that the de-facto public access situation that has developed over the past twenty years is excluded from that review

    I thought this too.

    Well done to all who went. It was a bit far for me, but I assume we’ll get the same for the Longmoor area soon.

    Ewan
    Free Member

    Yet there is a monthly Salisbury Plain Training Area Newsletter published on the government website giving detailed descriptions of planned exercises and the dates, units and specific areas involved! Hard to reconcile this with what we were told last night. I wanted to raise it but wasn’t quite sure of my facts.

    To be fair to the lt col. the areas in that newsletter are quite large – we’d asked for some way of knowing which bit of say Tunnel Hill was in use – a much smaller area (we asked in the context of having a number that group leaders could call rather than just putting it on the web for all and sundry)

    offthebrakes
    Free Member

    Fair enough Ewan, but they could just say ‘Tunnel Hill is in use tonight, so are PorridgePot and Minley’ and we can go to Caesar’s Camp or Frith Hill instead.

    That’s not highly detailed but helps us hugely to avoid conflict.

    Was the issue of demarcating night training with glowsticks as per the regulations raised last night? I know we’ve asked before, but it seems like it is worth restating pretty much every question TAG have put to them in the past, now that we maybe have their attention.

    Ewan
    Free Member

    Yep, don’t disagree with the points above, but the institutional memory of the IRA is probably going to make it a non-starter.

    Hopefully we’ll be able to meet with the Lt. Col in a smaller setting and explain that we’re all keen to work around the Army and avoid conflict – we’ll point out stuff like lack of glowsticks etc (we’ve done this before, but as you say lets do it again!)

    natrix
    Free Member

    As an aside, the British Army seems to be very good at hurtling around blowing things to smithereens, but perhaps not so good at engaging with the local population.

    If public access (including cyclists) was retained then maybe their training could incorporate more aspects of engaging with the local population and therefore be more effective………….. 8)

    uselesshippy
    Free Member

    Well, I think I’ll carry on as normal.
    When asked for my name, I’ll be bob, bob hope. 🙂 because after all, the average squaddy doesn’t care, and theres not much they can do to you anyway.

    PeterPoddy
    Free Member

    Well, I think I’ll carry on as normal.
    When asked for my name, I’ll be bob, bob hope. because after all, the average squaddy doesn’t care, and theres not much they can do to you anyway.

    It’s as good a solution as any.
    Either that or mass trespass. I’m sure The Trolls, BOB, Gorrick etc could muster a couple of hundred riders between them. It’s been done before……
    I reckon, in actual fact, if people keep their heads down, it’ll pass by pretty much unnoticed and in a few years everyone will have forgotten all about it.
    I was stopped (well I say stopped, he shouted to me, I rode over to chat) on Tunnel Hill last year sometime buy a nice chap in uniform in a Landrover. I had a present conversation with him (seriously) in which he did admit that there was bugger all they could do short of erect a 10ft fence all around the land and post guards on it, and that he’d have stood not a cat in hells chance of catching me if I didn’t want to be caught.
    Like I said earlier in this thread, I only go up there alone these days, so all that really changes for me is that I’ll not stop to chat anymore, I’ll just point my wheels downhill and bugger off sharpish. 🙂

    natrix
    Free Member

    I think a lot will depend on who sees you. The STO (Safety Training Officer) who spoke last night seemed to be a lot more accepting of mountain bikes on army land than the Lt Col.

    david47
    Free Member

    I suspect that cutting down on the night riding would also be appreciated…

    onandon
    Free Member

    Well, I’m just putting on some sun cream to do a nice sunny session over at Caesars 🙂

    40mpg
    Full Member

    Secondly I was annoyed that he said that he was very busy doing these presentations and that he would be doing his fourth in Winchester next week

    Any idea what the score is in the Winchester area? I’m not aware there’s any biking on military land in the vicinity (which is probably more worrying than having it potentially curtailed!)

    ninfan
    Free Member

    We should all just carry a bag of Moralibo sweeties to bribe the squaddies with 8)

Viewing 40 posts - 41 through 80 (of 94 total)

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