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Oscillate Wildly, it is a grey area. Personally, I think that the Peak Park Authority is consistently negligent in informing people of the inherent risks of accessing working farmland. Their agenda is so pro-tourism that people are inadvertently treating it an urban park and expecting the same safeguards.
More signage might help, but as one member posted – if a farmer posts signs and somebody gets hurt then they are almost in admission of a problem and potentially liable.
Therefore, I think the onus is on the park authority to educate the people that they are so eagerly encouraging into the park. I also think that the authority should take some liability when there are incidents of this nature. Farmers don’t have much choice regarding rights of way, they are just trying to live with them and they gain nothing from that.
I agree totally, it is a grey area on all counts
as I said I think the main problem is unless you are a seasoned walker/rambler most other forms of walkers (just going out for a walk somewhere new/ with friends / family / meeting up) will not have the foggiest about this sort of thing - educating people is all very well but how do you get the message across to mr and mrs smith who walk their dogs there once a year?! signage is the only thing would help such people - and if it admits liability then, of course its a problem for the farmers
if its happened numerous times by the same herd, the logical thing to do is to remove them to a less busy area - but that's catch 22 as everyone wants to see them as they are an attraction for a lot of people (and they are absolutely stunning creatures), so im not sure there is really a answer to it sadly
Munrobiker - of course it's devastating when a herd that has been bred for 40 years has to be disposed of. Are you suggesting farmers don't care about their livestock?
You can shove as many statistics forward as you like but the Peak District has been created and shaped by agriculture (alongside quarrying/mining) and those landowners aren't going to give up their livelihoods/heritage to simply make way for more weekend heroes.
Additionally, although a bit of re-wilding may be no bad thing, it's landowners who are responsible for much of that practice to start with. And until the Peak Park or central govt start paying farmers to treat humans as the incumbents, this dilemma will continue to exist - and probably intensify as domestic agriculture becomes more of a recognised national resource post-brexit.
Personally - I think agriculture should be given greater safeguards in the Peak District, for all of people's demands on that environment - who actually wants to see it without its farm animals?
As for the farmer's responsibilities - he had no other suitable land for a highland herd and was for many years trying to keep HIS cattle on HIS land, which is where they have been for the past forty years. In the end - the choice was sadly taken from him.
The way that this pathetic blame game is going - people will be suing landowners over rabbit holes next or slippery, wet grass...
Are they that much of an attraction? I know I go up to Curbar Edge from Baslow because of this view, not because of the cows. There are lots of cows and sheep all over the Peak District, most of which are a there for a purpose. The farmer himself says that, with the highland cattle, "There was no real financial incentive to have them".
billybob- you replied just after I clicked post on this so I missed your post. Of course farmers care about their livestock, but you can't form too much of an emotional attachment. I can think of one single cow getting a name at my family's farm in thirty years. I don't think anyone is saying that farmers are liable for rabbit holes or anything like that, but in any other industry leaving a piece of equipment or property that had previously injured someone to injure someone again without taking steps to deal with it would be deemed negligent. If it's his cattle on his land, he needs to take responsibility.
If he has no other suitable land then he could rent some from another farmer while the cattle have calves. Renting fields ad-hoc from other farmers is pretty common if you don't have something suitable on your own land for part of the year.
I appreciate that the Peak looks as it does because of farming and agriculture, but in the same way that the mining is part of its past I think farming is starting to be part of its past too. While Britain is going to need more domestic agriculture after Brexit, intensificaiton isn't going to happen in the Peak District's relatively marginal farms, it's going to happen in the mega industrial farms of Lincolnshire, East Anglia and so on. I'd agree that the park authority needs to look into land management practices and funding.
I genuinely don't think the farm animals are why people come to the Peak District -they come for views (that will change as farming declines, but only becoming more dramatic I reckon provided things are managed correctly), the trails, the pubs, the villages.
theres plenty of photograhpers who enjoy them that's for sure - I guess as they are not very common at all around here that's partially why also.
they don't interest me in the slightest, im like you, all for the views but I think a lot of people do find them interesting and have become part of the scenery for a long time
Nothing to say other than well done to those posting for brining it back from the verge, back into a reasoned debate. It's all too tempting to pick a side and be a dick about it - see facebook and twitter for how this goes.
Good to see we're still above that here.
Good to see we’re still above that here.
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Never been to the Peak district, so apologies if different, but in Kent most row go straight through fields. In France, they will follow a fence so you are not in the middle of the animals.
Why is that? Why can't footpath go round fields?
Surely it would be better for the farmers.
Munrobiker - Rather sadly, I can't disagree entirely with your projection about the future of farming in the Peak District. The Peak Park Authority almost single-handedly pushed mining and quarrying into someone else's back yard, but purely from a heritage perspective, I'd hope that our unique hill farms are spared from that eventuality.
My main hope is that people can maintain perspective on the many aspects that make the place what it is and don't get too strung up about any one facet of it. In that way - a bit of consideration does a huge amount towards keeping routes open, preventing conflict and looking after the place.
but purely from a heritage perspective, I’d hope that our unique hill farms are spared from that eventuality.
Agreed. I fear that leaving the EU may mean that many of them disappear, unless the government introduces new subsidies to keep them going. And it'd be sad if they didn't.
I think an STW argument has almost reached a reasonable agreement. Is this a first?
Bringing it back to reality, those subsidies are going to have to be earned through public benefit, and a big obligation of landowners will be to improve access....
some mixed reporting in the press about what has happened to the cows. anyone know?
https://www.fwi.co.uk/news/farmer-forced-to-sell-highland-herd-after-complaint-to-hse
So that you can peddle across said Moor and try to impress your mates without any dirty cows to contend with? And this wider society – is that your MTB community that you are referring to? Because you don’t speak for the generations of people who live and have created/maintained this environment for hundreds of years. You probably think the Moors are entirely natural too don’t you? You may find that the openness you crave for your hobby becomes significantly more constrained in the future as landowners seem to take legitimate steps to protect their livelihoods following the Baslow edge debacle.
You’ve clearly avoided reading any of the posts which very clearly state that the op was walking with his family and their dog!
I can only assume that you’ve done so because it doesn’t fit your agenda which seems to be taking a poke at mountain bikers on a biking forum.
And don’t, for one second, have a go at me for being ignorant about country life; while I was born and brought up in a small market town in Wiltshire, my dad was born in a tiny village, where my family can trace its history back to the mid-1700’s, mostly as farm labourers, and he taught me to have the greatest respect for the country and those who live and work there, and I’m very, very aware of risks attendant on accessing a working environment when there are cattle around, especially with calves and dogs. There was a fatality not so long ago just on the edge of town involving a woman using a path across a field with her dog, and another very close call not far from that incident.
A local landowner in Castle Combe used to graze highland cattle along a footpath which ran up the side of the valley from CC to another village. They trashed the path, turning it into a swamp, and eventually they were removed, they were hopelessly out of place, the whole area has been traditionally sheep grazing for centuries, so cattle can be the wrong type in the wrong place, which the cattle in question might well be.