North Yorkshire – Get Orf Moi Laaaand

So, I come to North Yorks on a wee break nr Sutton Bank, and went for a ride (as you do) I’ve never come across so many badly “maintained” ROW, so many locked gates, so many “Private- Keep Out” signs on so many obviously legal byways and bridleways. I did a 30 mile ride and I think I had to divert my route (all on legal ROW) 3 times. Plus a bonus chat with a farmer who (I kid you not) had a shotgun in a holster attached to his quad bike. One lane ended in a locked gate with a wee numerical access pad to unlock it, (I’m still on a Bridleway) and as I lifted the bike over a low fence the camera on the fence actually turned and looked at me. So, I gave it the finger, as any normal person would.

WTF? I mean literally What The ****?

If you’re local, please explain to me how this is OK?

I grew up in the general area, but have lived in Scotland for the last 14/15 years and I’m amazed when ever I go home at the situation you describe pretty accurately!

I know in some areas it’s been because of the crazy rise of illegal off-roading (bikes and 4×4), but I’m assuming there’s now an element of lock-down poor user behaviour and paranoiac carrying on?

I actually used to be a Public Rights of Way officer back in the 90s in Cleveland and it was never like that.

Plus a bonus chat with a farmer who (I kid you not) had a shotgun in a holster attached to his quad bike.

To be fair, most farmers who are out and need to be shooting vermin or rabbits etc will need to carry and quickly access it. It’s not unusual or inappropriate to have it ready to use – it’s a tool. I’ve stood chatting to farmer with rifle on the front of his quad – and we were chatting to the police who responded to an issue of dirty campers.

But yes, I find England really challenging over access now. Try paddling an English river or lake…

We were cycling over that way last year. We were in the middle of nowhere. We heard a group of motor bikers come from a direction where there wasn’t a trail. We watched them come to a barbed wire fence. Kick it over, then ride their bikes over it and just left it smashed. There were cows and sheep near by.

So, I’m not surprised some farmers get pist off and make it difficult for people to access their lands.

The few ruin it for the many.

I don’t understand how locking gates over bridleways discourages or prevents people from smashing down fences where there are no rights of way.

Is it to do with farm machinery theft ie lots of quad bikes get stolen from farms in Yorkshire

It doesn’t, probably encourages it, as they’d just be off-roading on the existing routes if they weren’t locked or blocked.

Back home where they’ve blocked off routes to vehicles they’ve actually bypassed it by thrashing their way through adjacent woods to get back on the routes, and then the routes are trashed too.

I’d say there’s a mix of good land managers who are just genuinely pissed off with inappropriate activities,use of routes and and stock security,and then your regular ‘get orf my land’ brigade that have always existed.

The locked gates with the numerical pad? That was a lane at the end of a large house, it was pretty clear they just didn’t want people using the ROW. I feel sorry for farmers who’ve had damage or stuff stolen, but some of the locked gates were clearly to protect pheasant stock.

The few ruin it for the many.

So the reaction is to make it difficult for legal users? That makes sense.

The land owners have little to loose by there actions as it will put off people who don’t know if its a right of way and people who do will complain on an internet forum and do nothing about it. (This includes me)

when out on a ride, if i am sure it is a legal right of way, i will carry on regardless, sometimes climbing over a gate or fence.

i am willing to argue my point with the landowner if i am confronted.

if you are sure in your knowledge that what you are riding on is legal, it is rarely a problem.

I mean this happens all over, not just North Yorkshire. Land owners can be 🔔 ends. Report it: paths@northyorks.gov.uk

Can’t say I’ve found the NYM any worse than other areas of England, but then I’ve usually been riding with locals who know the routes.

I know in some areas it’s been because of the crazy rise of illegal off-roading (bikes and 4×4), but I’m assuming there’s now an element of lock-down poor user behaviour and paranoiac carrying on?

I actually used to be a Public Rights of Way officer back in the 90s in Cleveland and it was never like that.

Possibly a knock on effect from the continued closing of various boats and byways?
Not that I’m condoning it but there’ll always be some who will ride/drive wherever they please, especially if the routes they could use keep being taken away from them.

I’ve come across locked gates wrapped with barb wire and smeared with cow shit on bridleways up Bredon Hill in the past. It was right by a sign noting which bridleway it was too.

I live in the area.  There are good and bad, but the bad ones tend to be really bad.  Some took against the increase in visitors during the Covid lock down and resorted to quite extreme measures to do all they could to limit/restrict access.  One landowner annexed/ fenced a long standing parking area for about 6 cars that allowed access for less active/disabled people.  I reported this to the council who then referred the matter to NYM authority.  After about 8 months they decided to do absolutely nothing about it.  The day that I received the message informing me of this, the NYM authority were on the local news bragging about all they were doing to improved disabled access to the national park…the irony.

Report, report, report.

Given enough hassle, eventually the authority will intervene to get you off their case.

We were on holiday in Wales recently and were amazed at how many footpaths were blocked by fences/hedges, etc. I’m used to opening my OS map on my phone and just going for a walk but it didn’t always work too well.

Report, report, report.

Not my circus, not my monkey. I’m up here for the weekend I’m not a local. I see all around this area farms diversifying into holiday lets (we’re in one ourselves) and signs everywhere for “Herriot Country” It seems like a strange invitation; come spend your money here, but don’t try to go for a walk, or ride a BW.

Slightly further South in North Derbyshire, the shitebag the Duke of Devonshire has increased the persecution of kayakers on the Derwent, but another development this week is thta he has cancelled the Scout Jamboree, which has been held in the grounds of Chatsworth for 70 years. No reason has been given, and it was short notice, so the Scouts are now looking for a big field they can set up camp for a week, preferably Derbyshire or South Yorks.

I would gladly support a rvolution to get these (huge) landowners thrown out. Are our great Opposition proposing to have open access? Last I heard was they thought it would be too difficult, like Scotland wasnt difficult to implement it! Its a total joke, the Rich do what they want.

Businesses in tourist areas always want visitors. Retired NIMBYs and miserable farmers don’t.

It’s the same everywhere in England.

Access in England and Wales is rubbish. It needs sorting out. To be fair to Labour last time they were in didn’t they get the CrOW act sorted? That was a major step forward but nothing much has been done since. Relying on legislation that was based on horse riding and where you might have driven a cart seems nuts. Also, anyone taking public money for farming or “conservation work” ought to be facilitating decent additional access. All these big landowners are taking the cash, some (most I’d guess)  for doing not much more than they do anyway. The money that gets poured into these estates from the public purse for bugger all often is alarming.

Plus a bonus chat with a farmer who (I kid you not) had a shotgun in a holster attached to his quad bike.

Yeah that’s not unusual.

As others have said if you’re confident it is a legal right of way then carry on, report any blocked or locked access.

To be fair, most farmers who are out and need to be shooting vermin or rabbits etc will need to carry and quickly access it.

Almost as if things would be better if they stopped hunting and/or poisoning all the predators.

What are the legal implications of taking some bolt cutters to a padlock on a gate across a legitimate RoW?

I actually used to be a Public Rights of Way officer back in the 90s

I used to work with a right of way officer. He said he gets a report that a bridleway is blocked. Drives out, puts his shoes on, walks to it. Takes photos. Tries to have an adult conversation and when that fails sends strongly worded letters. When that fails he then threatens them with legal action.

Eventually, as a last resort he goes to court. The whole process takes years. Even if he wins there are very few fines and very little reason for a landowner to allow access.

I thought his job sounded great but he said there’s that much paper work he hardly ever gets out and about.

Damascus, that about sums it up.

It takes ages to sort issues out if you can’t manage to persuade the land manager to essentially follow the law and work with you to resolve issues. That usually includes offering things to help with keeping people ‘on the right track’, signage, gates, etc., helping with stock security issues. Essentially I always bent over backwards to try to resolve the issues without going down the legal route which ends up.gling around in circles.

Access Officers and PROW officer often get bad press but they are the piggy in the middle between pissed off access users and landowners, trying to find a compromise that works for everyone, and using the legal system as a last resort, as it’s crap and so is the legal support generally. It’s a very frustrating job at times.

Not the two in the middle of these images was it nickc?

The bit around high cleaves is incredibly poorly mainted and difficult to follow.

The one at tang hall to greendale is equally awkward to find and follow

@dangeourbrain, must be pretty well known locally if you can identify it with my piss poor description!  First One.

Access in England and Wales is rubbish.

Yes, yes it is. But in all the 30 years I’ve been riding, this is the first area that I’ve been where it’s felt like there was a concerted effort to make it as difficult as possible. I mean you always come across gates that are locked that shouldn’t be, or signs hidden by undergrowth or whatever, I think we all have. This was altogether a magnitude of order different.

My wife, who went for a walk about the same time as me, OS map in hand, had pretty much the same experience.

Looks like you were in the wrong bit of North Yorkshire. I’m not aware of any such issues round these parts (Yorkshire Dales). There is some arsey farmer stopping a local fell race that’s run for years, but I think in that case they are (unfortunately) acting within their rights.

Not burnsall is it? I had a run in recently with an angry farmer on the open access land above the village on the fell race route.

I used to live in that area and it was an issue even 5+ years ago with certain landowners in Cleveland and the NYM trying to restrict access quite heavily. I can sort of see the problem, particularly in Cleveland, where they are plagued by scrotes on stolen bikes or just rogue offroaders.

The only properly aggressive encounter I’ve had with a landowner was near to where you were while towing a kids trailer. My crime? The bridleway entered a field and went basically across the tussocky field on no distinct path. There was an access track around the field (imagine the RoW was the string in a bow and the access track was the bow), we’re talking 200m here and I was genuinely lost rather than trying use a shortcut.

The depressing thing is a lot of people in  the mtb community and the wider public are the sort of forelock tuggers that believe open access is equivalent to allowing people to traipse through your garden.

There’s a vast backlog of reports about obstruction, some deliberate, some the result of neglect. It all boils down to funding. I doubt the Tory-voting landowners lose any sleep knowing that the huge cuts in LA funding have fallen disproportionately on the “non-essential” services like RoW.

We watched them come to a barbed wire fence. Kick it over, then ride their bikes over it and just left it smashed.

Our local e-bikers aren’t above this sort of behaviour to be honest, presumably because they can’t lift their bikes over a 3ft fence or wheel them through the perfectly serviceable gate right next to it 🙄

How does being local mean you can explain or justify the landowners position @nickc ?

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I ride in the moors maybe every fortnight or so at this time of year but opposite corner (Guisborough/Rosedale to the coast. Anyway, there’s good riding, bridleways and otherwise. I’ve never had any hassle, and I tend to ride where I want. I guess you can’t tell from the map if a moors bridleway is going to be non-existent, nice singletrack, or a gravel land rover motorway, or if a farmland one may need wellies and a machete/flamethrower.

Similar with the Dales where I ride a lot (which really needs to normalise riding appropriate footpaths ala lakes). Apart, that is, from the Devonshire estate and around and now Bingle moor, with it’s new tosser of an (by his account) owner (the new camera on a stick probably warrants it’s own thread), and new keeper who’s been chewing up Ilkley moor with his quad. Apparently doing the council a favour by watching out for barbecues, also challenging folks on bikes where we’re fine to ride.

Whatever, the worst that happens on the rare occasions I can’t avoid contact when I am somewhere I supposedly shouldn’t be, is a bit of a conversation where I stay friendly but make clear that in the face of restricted access to maintain eco-desert, I’m going to ride where I think best.

I can’t think when I last encountered a deliberate obstruction. However over green and poorly maintained are every where.

I find the Strava heat map really useful for seeing where you might actually get through.

I’d like better country side access. But at the moment just stronger legal backing for the current access arrangements would help

Our local e-bikers aren’t above this sort of behaviour to be honest, presumably because they can’t lift their bikes over a 3ft fence or wheel them through the perfectly serviceable gate right next to it

A great example of divide and conquer in action. If the barbed wire is across a ROW good luck to them.

Genuine question

There is a footpath near me that runs between a huge house, it’s gardens and their horse paddock. It completes a nice little afternoon loop. The owner clearly doesn’t want peasants on his property so he’s just let it completely block up with brambles. Either side is fenced and the paddock and gardens on each side are immaculatey groomed and planted. Firstly as the footpath is impassable, am I allowed to walk in the paddock next to it ( but on the ‘wrong’ side of the fence which would mean climbing it twice. Secondly, can I go in with a petrol strimmer? Though to be honest it would take 3 or 4 people a weekend

IA(deffo)NAL, but I think it’s seen as OK to lightly trim overgrown vegetation back as long as you do no damage to property or affect enclosure of livestock, etc.? I guess your petrol strimmer solution falls outside of this…

You could always ask if your volunteer labour to clear the RoW would be welcome?

The full responsibility still lies with the landowner and blockage via ‘neglect’ should be reported to RoW officers (subject to everything that’s already been said here about the difficulty of their job in this context).

I’ve reported a number of issues to the North Yorkshire Council rights of way team over the years.

They’re are pretty responsive and have resolved any issues that I’ve brought to their attention (blocked stiles on bridleways, overgrown routes, poorly maintained gates etc).

I’d always recommend reporting any issues to the authorities to keep the pressure on the landowners, otherwise our access will erode over time… It also helps the teams know about any issues – they don’t have the resources to look for problems.

Re Winston’s post above – would you feel comfortable approaching the owners and asking them nicely if they had any plans to clear the path as its difficult to get through? It’s worked for me in the past. If they get arsy report it.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/public-rights-of-way-landowner-responsibilities#keep-public-rights-of-way-clear-of-obstructions