We’ve been having a bit of tidy-up at LARA’s virtual HQ and Alan has unearthed a treasure trove of planning appeal decision letters issued between 1988 and 2010. Most of the issues that regularly bear against permanent (and sometimes temporary) motor sport sites are in here: noise, dust, traffic, green belt, SSSIs, and visual intrusion. We’ve combined them into a new LARA Paper available here, with apologies for the (large) file size.

A study of these decisions should inform future applicants about the difficulties they may face. We can’t explain why we’ve nothing more recent than 2010 on file but LARA welcomes any additional decision letters to add to this set.

One of the long-standing frustrations when dealing with countryside access has been the lack of easily-available information on the minor road network, particularly unsealed minor roads, and this frustration has only grown as more-and-more information on both surfaced roads, and the rights of way network, has become available online. If you’re looking for a surfaced road, then ‘coloured’ roads on OS maps or any decent SatNav system will show you where to go. If you’re looking for a right of way (BOAT, Restricted Byway, Bridleway, or Footpath), then the OS maps or the Local Authority / Highway Authority online maps will guide you on your way (errors and omissions excepted).

But unsealed unclassified roads have, until now, always fallen into an information gap between surfaced roads on one hand and rights of way on the other. The knowledgeable have always been able to head-down to their local highway authority to study the List of Streets (assuming that it’s in a user-friendly format) but what happens when you’re looking for somewhere distant where you can legally drive? It’s true that the situation got a lot better when the Ordnance Survey added the ORPA classification to their maps but that was, in principle, a once-off exercise and the OS has no mechanism for adding ‘new’ ORPAs to their maps.

Now, at last, GeoPlace have made the National Street Gazetteer available, online, at:

findmystreet.co.uk

This is a huge step forward but, before everyone gets too excited, it’s important to remember that the National Street Gazetteer is “a repository for combining the Local Street Gazetteers” and, as such, is only as good as the information supplied by the local Highway Authorities. A quick analysis, by LARA, has revealed a wide variation in both the quantity and quality of this information. At the better end, some HAs have included their rights of way data allowing a ‘one-stop-shop’ for all access information. At the worse end, some HAs appear to have ignored all of their unsealed roads.

The findmystreet website provides links to report ‘Missing Streets’ but LARA is asking all its member organisations, and their members, NOT to report missing streets on an ad-hoc basis as we are concerned that a tsunami of single street-by-street reports will overload the Highway Authorities. LARA will be co-ordinating consolidated lists of missing streets for the most important (to us) Highway Authorities and submitting these at the appropriate time. We’ll keep you posted.

Have you had a look at the Reference Documents pages of this website recently? We’ve been adding some historical documents over the last few weeks, and will be adding more over the next few weeks, so click the link above and take a trip down memory lane.

Our friends at the Open Spaces Society are looking to recruit a new Rights of Way Case Officer. Read more on their website at https://www.oss.org.uk/how-you-can-help/recruitment/

We are pleased to announce the publication of a major new LARA report on the Surface Standards for Unsealed Public Roads. This LARA report, and the associated LARA paper giving the View of the Courts, set out the legal framework for deciding on the most appropriate surface for unsealed BOATs and unclassified roads, and the legal requirements for maintenance and repair. The report is available on the LARA – Publications page of this website.

The Reference Documents section of the report includes a short list of publications setting-out how to achieve and maintain that ‘appropriate surface’. These reference documents include two excellent publications from the USA where ‘dirt and gravel’ roads are considered quite normal for minor roads in rural areas.

This is the third of the four LARA reports intended to ‘shadow’ the four principal topic areas of the MSWG.

We have been waiting a long time for the implementation of the rights of way provisions in the Deregulation Act 2015, which will finally give effect to the remaining provisions in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000. The uncertainty caused by Brexit has led to the specialist DEFRA officers being reassigned, and the work of the Stakeholder Working Group being put on ice.

This hiatus has caused a lot of worry to organisations directly affected by the 2026 ‘cut off’ for making changes to the definitive map of rights of way, and pressure is mounting on the government to delay the cut-off back to 2031, as CRoWA 2000 already allows.

On 15th March LARA submitted a question about the need for this delay to the current Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee inquiry; LARA also co-signed a letter, dated 22nd March, from The Ramblers to Michael Gove, the Secretary of State. By coincidence, or not(?), this proposed delay is to be debated in the House of Lords on the afternoon of Tuesday 2nd April 2019, lead by Lord Greaves, a Lib-Dem peer with particular interests in outdoor recreation. 

Is there a head of steam building here?

We are pleased to announce the publication of a major new LARA report on Anti-Social and Unlawful Motoring in the Countryside. This LARA report, and the associated LARA paper on Driving Conduct and Traffic Offences, explain what is anti-social and what is unlawful, with an explanation of the measures already available to tackle both. The report is available on the LARA – Publications page of this website.

This is the fourth (although only the second to be published) of four LARA reports intended to ‘shadow’ the four principal topic areas of the MSWG:

• The status of unsealed unclassified roads. LARA report published September 2018.
• Traffic regulation: orders and other measures. LARA report to be published Summer 2019.
• Surface standards and repair. LARA report to be published Spring 2019.
• Anti-social and unlawful motoring. LARA Report published March 2019.

We welcome all comments, and suggestions for clarification or improvement. LARA and its Member Organisations are ready and willing to work with highway authorities, the police, and non-motorised user groups, to address anti-social and unlawful motoring in the countryside.

In October 2017 a ‘Save the Lake District’ lobby group presented a petition to the CEO of the Lake District National Park Authority, requiring the Authority to start proceedings for a Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) to close a network of green lanes in the central Lake District to recreational motor vehicles. The petition continues to run at https://www.savethelakedistrict.com/home, is full of false statements and misrepresentations, and creates an apparently widespread perception of guilt whilst providing no option to challenge the claims made. In 2018 the lobby group further petitioned the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO asserting that by not banning recreational motor vehicles the Lake District National Park Authority was violating its then recently achieved World Heritage status.

Local recreational motor vehicle interest clubs led by LARA’s North Region Liaison prepared a critique report to UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee which exposes and refutes the many false claims and misrepresentations included in the Save the Lake District papers. The report was copied to the Lake District National Park Authority and Historic England in order that they were also made aware of the many false claims in the Save the Lake District papers.

You can read the report on the Papers and Reports by Others page of this website.

We’ve just published another new LARA paper, titled Driving Conduct and Traffic Offences and sub-titled Enforcement Against Anti-Social and Unlawful Motoring in the Countryside. This sets out the main types of anti-social and unlawful motoring that can take place on unsealed roads, public rights of way, and other land, and lists the traffic offences available to tackle such behaviour. It is a companion paper to the forthcoming LARA Report on Anti-Social and Unlawful Motoring in the Countryside (to be published during Spring 2019). You can read or download the new paper from the LARA – Papers and Reports page.

We’ve just published a new LARA paper, titled 18 Years of Countryside Access Legislation and sub-titled A Review of Changes Affecting BOATs and Unclassified Roads. This is a snapshot of all the countryside access legislation, as it affects the use of mechanically-propelled vehicles in the countryside, from the CRoW Act of 2000 right up to the end of 2018 (and nothing has changed in the last three months). We explain when legislation has been commenced, and when it has not (yet), with an emphasis on what various user groups should do now, and what they should not. You can read or download the paper from the LARA – Papers and Reports page.