http://www.flickr.com/photos/mhampshire/3525151054/

It means that on no date can you go in the forest. 🙂

9 March to 4 September – no entry.

Am I missing something?

It’s really not hard…

You have a minute each day where you can enter.

but it also says your public rights of way are not affected

Plain enough to me. Which bit do you not understand ?

Plain enough to me. Which bit do you not understand ?

The Welsh half? 😆

but it also says your public rights of way are not affected

Presumably ‘official’ rights of way – footpaths and bridleways – remain open, but any other access is prohibited.

They put up similar signs (without the foreign bit) on the Quantocks a couple of years ago, just an arse covering exercise as far as I could tell.

Presumably ‘official’ rights of way – footpaths and bridleways – remain open, but any other access is prohibited.

This is how I have read it too.

and I imagine the allowed access for a minute every day lets them claim it’s not a complete closure and possibly avoid some legal restrictions on that

I read it as “Ignore this sign”, but y’know I’m not much cop at Welsh

it means dont wander off the public paths unless you want a tree falling on you.

Sounds like you are only allowed into the forest if you’re on a public right of way. Stray from footpaths or bridleways and you’ll get felled, stripped of your branches and sent to the saw mill.

out of interest, which minute does is access allowed? i think you’ll find 00:00 comes just after 23.59…

It’s closing Access Land, designated under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act. So it is land you’d have a legal right to access (on foot!) normally.

i think you’ll find 00:00 comes just after 23.59…

indeed, with a 60 second gap…

er. not really. if the sign said 00:00:00 to 23:59.00 then i’d agree with you.

if your going to be pedantic you really should be right….

The only reason they do that with the time is because as general rule, Jo/Joe Public can’t get their heads around a 24 hr clock. Ask the man on the street what 12am and 12pm are and you’ll get a lot of head scratching. We do the same thing at work on legal orders but we go from 00:01 to 23:59 just to make it easy.

While we’re here, one for the pedants on the site (if there are any). Notice that on road signs, times are written 4.30 pm instead of 4:30 pm?

Discuss!

Jo/Joe Public can’t get their heads around a 24 hr clock. Ask the man on the street what 12am and 12pm are and you’ll get a lot of head scratching

ehh – 12 am and 12 pm are in 12h clock… are you sure its Joe who’s confused not you!

00:01 to 23:59 just to make it easy.

We just say either noon or midnight – just to make it easier still 🙂

Two different stantments, I should have explained more thoroughly. They can’t get their heads around 12am/12pm so you’d think the 24 hrs clock would solve the problem but they get confused with that as well. Seems 00:00 is too ambiguous so we have to go with 00:01 to 23:59.

Not all of the public is that bad but they do encourage us to dumb down!

uplink, the areas I have to write orders for would probably get confused with midday and midnight. It’s when you add a date it gets silly is midnight on the 21st at the start of the 21st or the end? 00:01 on the 21st is harder to get wrong (but they do).

The sign is obvious. Welsh people and English people are banned except those very swift ones who can traverse the area in 59 seconds.

Foreigners are ok, which seeing as they are likely to be chainsawn, may not be such a privilege.

Are alot of people on here thick??

Why do people assume you can ride for a minute a day??

In plain easy to understand English

from 12am on the 9th march UNTIL 11:59PM on the 4th September you cannot access this area UNLESS on a public right of way

Its quite easy really…… thicko’s

radoggair, you are probably right but the fact it has confused so many of us surely proves that is was a crap sign so the original post was justified. If it was as simple to explain as you suggest why didn’t the jobsworths use your choice of words instead of a mix of font sizes and so on. The initial impression is no access at all whereas allowing people in on rights of way is possibly a massive let off effectively greatly reducing the ‘keep out ness’ of the order.

It is in plain English – “between 0:00 and 23:59 on the dates below”.

I read that perfectly validly as being the exclusion times for each of the days below.

I ain’t thick.

from 12am on the 9th march UNTIL 11:59PM on the 4th September you cannot access this area UNLESS on a public right of way

That’s not what it says. It says from 12am until 11:59pm on the dates 9 March till 4 September. If it said “between 09.00 and 17.00 on the dates below” you wouldn’t interpret it your way, would you?

Thicko 🙂

Thought clearly the FC are also thickos for putting stupid times on there instead of just saying “at any time on these dates”.

PS not specifying seconds clearly implies zero seconds (and hence permits 60 seconds’ access per day) if you’re even remotely autistic – and if you’re not remotely autistic then WTF are you doing on a mountain biking Internet forum? 🙂

I saw one of these signs on a recent trip up Margam Woods and they were actually felling across the fireroad. So no matter how swift I felt I would be I never went past the signs.

That’s not what it says. It says from 12am until 11:59pm on the dates 9 March till 4 September. If it said “between 09.00 and 17.00 on the dates below” you wouldn’t interpret it your way, would you?

Thicko

Pathetic. Obviously me making it easy to understand hasn’t helped the less fortunate of us. Well, we could become really pedantic and add seconds in to the equation, but we can always argue that even then you could still cycle for the tenths or hundredths or thousandsths of a second because this is not listed on the bored.

In fact, f*ck it, lets go all the way and argue that technically there is not even in 24 perfect hours in a day because at some point it has to tick over to the next day meaning there cant be 24 hours in a day but 23hrs 59 mins 59.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999etc seconds

fud 🙄

There really are some heavily aspergic people on this forum, aren’t there?

… This all reminds me a bit of the Singletrackworld definition – entered by someone calling themselves ‘Chipps’ – on Urbandictionary.com

“I’m an overwieght, stuffy, pompous engineer with a lack of personality is there anywhere I can go to have petty arguements with people just like me?”
“Of course there is, try singletrackworld”

Just incase it has not been answered here, the plain fact is the sign is about restriction of open access for the stated resons this could be anything such as a mountain bike race rally or tree operations.

The Welsh Assembly on its creation became the owner of all state forests in Wales. in 2000 when open access was introduce as a dumb act of bravado to one up England and to entice other woodland owners to do the same they dedicated the state forests as being open access land like it is on open land mountains and commons ( ie for walkers only they can go where the **** they like), for cyclists and horseriders the principle is still of permissive access on forest roads only or dedicated trails which can be stopped as and when the forestry feel like it.. this is why you find the stupid bobbled hatted **** walking along the marin trail .. it’s because they can… and open access is largely useless in forestry for old dodderers as they need paths and for this purpose dedicated mtb trail is fine and there is nothing the forestry can do to legally stop them as they made the forests open access.

on occaissions there will be a need to stop Bill and Betty Bobble-Hat from roaming and the forestry by notice can suspend open access temporarily but not permenantly. They must do so by submitting a notice to the CCW, the Local Authority and placing a notice on site at all points of entry. The notice only suspends open access for walkers, unless they apply for a legal closure on any public right of way all rights of way will be open during the periods of notice. As far as cyclists and horseriders are concerned the forestry only need erect any kind of sign to stop use for it to have legal effect, as all they need do is withdraw permission.

Generally these notices are aimed to cover an area greater than the actual work taking into account clearly defined boundaries that make sense. It does not follow that roads do need closing unless they go into felling areas or are being used by timber extraction vehicles. You should take note of any advice the forestry give, if you ignore it the forestry will recal land use it in arguments when the lieks of the CTC etc try to get extensions to our own opportunities.

That’s a badly worded sign. It doesn’t really say whether rights of way remain open or whether they have been temporarily closed, and you do not want to be wandering around on a footpath assuming you are safe when something like this could be working a few metres away.

Absolutely amazing that anyone can find anything difficult about this. Common sense prevents looking for loop holes or trying to see things wrong. whats IS the problem? It says in plain English. you cannot come here unless you are on RoW. Ie footpath, bridleway, restricted byway, byway open to all traffics, ORPA meaning unclassified road or any classified road.

so why didnt they just write that you can use the footpath while forest operations are in progress but you are not allowed to stray from the footpath

It clearly does though and for the final time ‘ACCESS PROHIBITED UNLESS ON A PUBLIC RIGHT OF WAY’. Has the mere fact you have to stop and read the easy to understand sign made this quite difficult for you. Wasn’t English taught in your school?

“Wasn’t English taught in your school?” yes i even got my a level in it 😉

and even though i havent been to school for a long time i am sure i could make an easier to understand sign than the one in the photo

“Wasn’t English taught in your school?” yes i even got my a level in it

That’ll be an A level then 😛

😉

sarcasm is lost on some people