I may be wrong, but don’t National Parks get funding from the Public Purse? i.e. We as taxpayers all contribute to the running and maintainance of the Park?

If so, sod ’em. Its our land so we’ll use it!

may be wrong, but don’t National Parks get funding from the Public Purse? i.e. We as taxpayers all contribute to the running and maintainance of the Park?

If so, sod ’em. Its our land so we’ll use it!

Yep!

And I do! It’s a great place 😀

only a scoundrel would abuse the rules of the NF

after all, they’ve barely needed changing since the 1870’s so they must be good

they’ve barely needed changing since the 1870’s so they must be good

Just the bit saying carriages can drive over the scum people has been revised to say cars can be…

It’s a delicate balance trying to keep the off road cycling network that we currently have in the new forest. The FC and the NPA are working hard at a number of levels to guarantee the future of the cycle access that we have currently. It is not at all guaranteed and the FC have to ask the verderers for permission every few yrs.

The verderers are uppity about the off road cycling because they see it as a recreational facility. Legally the FC have to ask their permission to add or develop any recreational facilities on the forest as they can be considered to have an impact on commoning. For balance it is important to consider that the verderers main purpose is to “manage” and protect commoning/ grazing interests and it is this 1000+ years of grazing that makes the forest the unique place that it is.

When the verderers find people off the network cycling in the “tranquil”areas they just go back to the FC and tell them that they aren’t managing access on the current network so why should they allow the permissive access to continue and why should they allow any extra links and extensions. They just see that perpetuating more off network access.

The legality of access on a bike in the NF is an issue due to the law and property act. This give free right of access across the NF on foot and horse but doesn’t grant any “higher rights” such as on a bike or a car. It’s a very old act and outdated but I guess it also is the reason that we can’t ride on public footpaths across the uk.

The verderers don’t administer this piece of legislation but they utilise it to get what they want.

The other fly in the ointment is that the whole of the FC estate in the NF, “The Crown Lands” is a SSSI and also a SAC, Special Site of Scientific Interest and Special Area of Conservation respectively. The SSSI status is the highest level of conservation designation in the uk and the SAC is the highest level of conservation designation in Europe. The new forest ecology is genuinely unique and very protected by law. This makes it very difficult to reconcile recreation of any type and the protection of the conservation status. It’s almost impossible just to build a new track or trail to link up a route.

It must also seem genuinely crazy to someone on a bike to be stopped by a an FC guy in a landrover and told you can’t ride there and to turn back and then see the landrover and a massive tractor trundle down that same road. All that guy is doing is trying to protect access for the hundreds of thousands each year who use the off road network as if the verderers see that same person riding off route it becomes more ammunition to get the whole route thrown out. Now I’m not sure that will ever be possible given the current levels of use but what it does do is make any time that the FC or the NPA or the Cycle Working Group have for discussion on cycling get completely drowned in arguments about current off network use making it difficult to move forward on actually sorting out new links or better access.

The road cycling thing is another issue altogether. It’s just perpetuated by people who come to live here jumping on the bandwagon just fit in down the local pub. It’s crazy that you’d prefer an extra 100 cars to be driving through Lyndhurst than 100 bikes. That said, if you’re a local it is a busy place in the summer and it can be a pain in the traffic when you’re just trying to get to work or the shops and the huge(and excellent) increase in road cycling means that there has been a massive increase in bikes on the already crowded roads of the NF. Obviously I’m a cyclist myself and I treat other cyclists, and motorists with respect on the roads but it can be frustrating to be stuck behind a big spread out group on a narrow winding road just as much as it’s frustrating to be sat behind a dawdling caravanner for 4 miles on the a35.

I don’t know what the answer is to this one, it’s just a perceived problem mainly but it’s the fashionable moan lately in the NF for those who want to fit in. 5 yrs ago it was river restoration, 5 yrs before that it off road cycling, before that it was probably something else.

The new forest ecology is genuinely unique and very protected by law. This makes it very difficult to reconcile recreation of any type and the protection of the conservation status.

I’ll wager the SSSI and SAC are very rarely (if at all) used to curb walking, dog walking, or horse riding tho, eh?

Besides when stopped can’t every rider say “I’m just off down the shops for some milk do you want anything while I’m there? recreational riding? no sir, not me, can’t stand those bloody hippy rec riders”

Lyndhurst is absolutely awful in the summer with traffic because of the one way system and traffic lights as you approach the town. Oddly thats not caused by bikes though, but its accepted as ok.

Whilst I accept that the NF is different, if a horse can ride somewhere than I’ll be happy to ride my bike there. If someone cant tell the difference in terms of envirnomental impct between the two, they really should be in a position to make decisions and enforcements relating to them.

As I’ve said, I’ll continue to ride pretty much where I please in the NF. What can they ACTUALLY do to ME?

Burko, its interesting to put the law of property act issue in context- In 1925, S193 of the Law of Property act granted the public rights of access to common land for ‘air and exercise’ – It was not until 1998 that this right was recognised as extending to horse riding on common , after a court case – one of the pronouncements in that case was that “Parliament intended in 1925 to confer the broadest possible rights of access for air and exercise to those commons”, although Mountain bikes remain excluded under a clause as they are ‘carriages’ or ‘vehicles’ within the meaning of the law – hence a clause written decades before the conception of mountain bikes stops them being used to enjoy the broad right of ‘air and exercise’ it is of course difficult to square this with the intention of parliament at the time, who wrote that clause to prevent Gypsy encampments. Its also important to remember that this is only a default position and the landowner retains full authority to permit cycling, and in the absence of a demonstrable and real threat to conservation (and cycling is not mentioned as a problem in any of the New Forest SSSI condition reports, unlike overgrazing by commoners horses) there are reasons IMO why the failure to extend this access demonstrates a failure by the NPA to fulfil its statutory duties.

All National Park Authority members have a primary responsibility to ensure that the Authority furthers the statutory Park purposes. There is a useful Countryside Agency publication on this front, http://t.co/nzSGPJj0v1 and shows those duties to be:

• to conserve and enhance the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage of the National Parks, and:
• to promote opportunities for the understanding and enjoyment of the special qualities (of the Parks) by the public.

Its goes on to say that the latter duty is equal in importance to the former (except in rare circumstances where conservation clashes) and admits that national park authorities in the past have misinterpreted this as a duty to educate rather than a duty to encourage and provide for recreation in the national park.

It remains difficult to square this with some of the recent actions and decisions taken by the NPA, I would clearly question whether they and the NPA committee are complying with the law.

At the moment the ‘ban cycling’ focus has shifted to the mass participation events, such as the Wiggle sponsored sportives.

The very few times an official comes across a stray mountain biker does seem to have become a minor thing in the last couple of years.

I fully support keeping these mass events on the roads 😀

Don’t think I’m in the anti cycling camp anyone. I’m just trying to put things into context.

I’m all for access on bike but what won’t do the cause any good at the moment is doing things that jeopardize access on bike for the masses.

The law and property act is quite rightly an ass in this case and an antiquated law. The problem is the reluctance for any organisation locally to test this law either way due to cost, staff time and local politics and the potential for a loss. If the FC lose, then no cycling at all, if the Verderers lose then in their eyes there’s no limit to what recreational disturbance there will be. It’s a big risk both ways.

The erosion issue – bikes vs horses isn’t really ever a part of debates as far as I remember. There is generally a lack of reason and logic in the Forest. It’s all about the principle of additional recreation and disturbance of tranquility.

The NPA aren’t the landowner and the New Forest isn’t technically common land. I think the NPA’s hands are a bit tied in this case although there is work being done albeit slowly through the RMS and the Cycle Working Group to try to move things on.

In the NF it’s all about picking your battles. There isn’t time to fight everything as the FC has a statutory role in delivering across a wide area and has to have working relationships with the statutory consultees such as the Verderers, NPA, NFDC and HCC , Natural England etc to carry out a lot of other important work.

Where the FC can support and promote off road cycling they will, you only have to look at the levels of access around the UK and the millions spent on trails and trail centres. It is more difficult in the NF due to the conservation designations and the law set out in the various New Forest Acts that give the Verderers their powers and the FC it’s duties in relation to managing the NF.

If the FC lose, then no cycling at all

there is already no meaningful offroad cycling permitted, which gives the cyclists very little to lose. They could ban tourists from taking their kids along a gravel path that doesn’t properly link to the next one, but the loss of that “amenity” would be meaningless to me.

Scaredypants.

There are 100 miles or so of gravel tracks that hundreds of thousands of people use every yr. Despite the poor links it’s possible to drive to a car park with your kids and get a ride in with them in fairly safe terrain.

There’s a lot of good people using the routes and a lot of people getting back on bikes, getting their first hire bike and riding. This has all got to be a good thing.

There’s also a lot of good people making a living out of renting, selling, fixing bikes that get used on the facility.

The loss of that facility might be meaningless to you but for all those mentioned above it would be a deal breaker.

It’s pretty unlikely given the level of use and the period of time that the routes have been in operation.

For the verderers, and the new forest association it’s just like you turning up on some bit of upland in your 4×4 and demanding to drive down a bridle way. I’m not saying it is but that’s what some of the local decision makers and their supporters think.

Just a dream but imagine linking together the towns with a series of tracks. Tourists could cycle between locations off the roads, locals could commute between towns on gravel paths, the routes would all link together so you can do loops and extend them as you like.

This is designed to address the casual cyclist and local trips rather than offering mountain bikes fun. i do have a cunning plan for more interesting mountian biking outside of the control of the Verderers

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/hampshire-test-valley-southampton-the-forest-park-framework-call-to-action

burko,

The loss of that facility might be meaningless to you but for all those mentioned above it would be a deal breaker.

I’m not so sure that it would – maybe those same people would ride down the forest’s “lovely quiet lanes” instead (and that’d amuse the anti-roadie lobby, wouldn’t it !)

More likely they’d ignore the rules (that they probably wouldn’t know anyway) and ride along any route they fancied. I see kids bikes outside tents in all of the forest’s campsites; do we imagine that parents are telling their kids not to ride round nearby land as it’s not permitted ?

However, as you also said, there’s no way they’d remove those permissions anyway. Regardless, they’re genuinely meaningless to me – I’ll ride those paths whether or not some bloke in Lyndhurst (whose job is pretty much to restrict public access to the place) says I can. The people the verderers represent (CDA and their like) are an anachronism even for the 20th century – and they know it, but cling to the imagery as it protects their interests

(WCA, good lad – keep t’north empty !)

What is the ‘north’ you speak of? is that where the mystic trails behind the Nationwide at Swindon are or is there land beyond that?

North of the A31 – no electricity and dragons are still running the place, but it’s a home of sorts

There’s also a lot of good people making a living out of renting, selling, fixing bikes that get used on the facility.
The loss of that facility might be meaningless to you but for all those mentioned above it would be a deal breaker.

I think it would be awesome if the verderers removed permission, it would bring everything to a head and the law would then have to step in and be amended.

the best thing that could happen is the huge network of gravel tracks be opened up to get people off the roads

Andyfla – I could provoke that situation if you think it will help

We’re all after the same thing here, my posts were to just to put things into context and explain some of the real issues that organisations like the FC and the NPA face. I wanted to try to get across that there are a lot of people fighting our corner and there’s a lot of work going on through the rms and the cycle working group and through the FCs constant work keeping the routes open. It’s not ideal and it’s difficult to influence an organisation like the verderers as they are just so far away from us lot on here.

WCA – cant make anything worse

Mass trespass time – aka Kinder in the 1930’s ?

I thought either wee in their shoes or nuke them from space – any preference?

If WCA’s demographic analysis is anything to go by, the problem will dwindle away as they all trot off to nursing homes over the next 10 years!

Brooes

I thought that 11 yrs ago….. Seems life too good here, too much organic and fresh food and relaxed rural living…. Life expectancy better in the south than Glasgow for example.

Problem also is that any new people moving in from up East want to get grounded/rooted into the notoriously prickly local community as quickly as possible so first night in the local pub or outside the local school it’s all “oh, I hate these damn cyclists, all over the place on the narrow roads, can’t get the little range rover sport past them, causing trouble and traffic jams, riding all over the forest, getting in the way of the poor commoners whilst they’re busy pinching firewood etc….”

It quickly buys them (they think it does) kudos if they can quickly moan about the things they think locals are moaning about (unfortunately their research is done by buying the lymington times).

Nuking the lymington times would go some way to solving the two issues as they are the ones really stirring things up every week!

Perhaps it needs pushing up the food chain if certain locals don’t want to ‘share’ the forest with other users, maybe it should have it’s National Park status revoked along with any subsidies, that I dare say they are milking.
Maybe someone in the NF could start a campaign for Open Access as they have in Scotland. I bet that would get the NF NIMBY’s twitching 😉

Vote just taken:

Those for the scheme being scrapped 12 – Against 2 – Abstained 3

Not a surprise, although disappointing the scheme is scrapped – however I’m not convinced it would have been viable or would have had that big a take-up. The idea was great in theory.

The only positive which may spring from this, is the potential backlash from the press and cycling / sustainable transport organisations, which may benefit future decisions.

I was out in the Forest today, and the number of families / leisure cyclists around (off road) were numerous, and this tourism brings much needed ££’s to local towns like Lyndhurst / Brokenhurst / Burley that would be totally dead if it weren’t for tourism. In this day and age, it’s hard to see how the Verderers have any legal status or standing.

I propose that the money saved is used to install these

on all the 40mph roads over the open forest

Should please the locals no end 😈