Apologies, to those unfamiliar with Rights of Way Terminology, for the cryptic title, but we know it will help those-in-the-know to find this post in the future.

We are often asked whether Local Access Forums (LAFs) have any role in advising on the use of Mechanically Propelled Vehicles (MPVs) on Unsealed Unclassified Roads (UURs). The short answer is No, and this was confirmed to LARA in a letter from DEFRA in November 2012.

For more information see DEFRA’s Guidance on Local Access Forums in England document, now available from the Government Publications page of this website – see Annex A, paragraph 3, on page 29 of the document (page 33/52 in the PDF).

We have published a new Privacy Notice, in advance of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) coming into force on 25th May 2018.

The House of Lords Select Committee reviewing the NERC Act 2006 published its report last week. You can view/download the complete report as a PDF file from this link. Chapter 6, covering Green Lanes and Rights of Way, starts on page 79 of the report, and the key recommendations are contained in paragraphs 316 and 317 on pages 81 and 82.

Without going into the detail, LARA is quite content with the wording of these paragraphs. We feel that they represent a sensible, and nuanced, appraisal of the current situation which can be usefully referenced to our advantage within the MSWG.

We have been asked questions about LARA’s response to the DEFRA Consultation on “Health and Harmony: the future for food, farming and the environment in a Green Brexit”, launched on 27 February 2018. More information about the Consultation is available here.

LARA has already responded to the Consultation, primarily to point-out that the Consultation document appears to be totally ‘silent’ on non-agricultural land use, with no mention of sport in general, nor motor sport in particular.

LARA’s member organisations are aware of the Consultation, and we know that some will be submitting detailed responses in due course.

At the LARA Steering Committee meeting on 23rd January it was agreed that the LARA Byway Code (November 2017 version) should be withdrawn pending revision. The intention is that a revised and updated Code will be published during Summer 2018.

In the interim, users should refer to the recommendations of the appropriate user organisation:

• Trail riders on motorcycles – The TRF Code of Conduct.
• Recreational 4×4 drivers – The GLASS Code of Conduct.

For motorsport, the procedures for event authorisation cover similar topics to the LARA Byway Code.

After our oral evidence session to the House of Lords Select Committee reviewing the NERC Act 2006 – see previous posting – we were invited to submit further written evidence. This, together with further written evidence from the TRF, GLEAM, and others, has now been posted on the Parliament.uk website. To read the submissions, follow this link, then scroll down to Written evidence, select View all, and look for documents published in January 2018. We will be reviewing the written evidence submitted by GLEAM (all 23 pages of it) in due course, but remain unaware of the Lords’ overall timetable for reporting and recommendations (if any).

LARA and the TRF were both invited to give oral evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006. This followed written evidence submitted by LARA in September. The oral evidence session took place on 21 November, with Alan Kind representing LARA and Mario Costa-Sa representing the TRF. As usual with Parliamentary Select Committees, the members of the Committee (all Members of the House of Lords in this case) had been well-briefed and asked pertinent, and searching, questions. Overall we felt that both motoring organisations had been given a fair hearing.

You can read more about the Committee, and its work, here – http://bit.ly/2BwY75U – selecting “View all publications” for links to transcripts of the various evidence sessions and a link to watch the proceedings on Parliament TV.

During LARA’s work on the MSWG it became apparent that many of the non-motoring organisations were unaware of the vast amount of previously-published information on the subject of motoring in the countryside. We are therefore gathering together, and publishing on the LARA website, every document that we know about and which we believe is still relevant, however old. Many of the documents are re-published from the old LARA website, but many are ‘new’ and are made easily-accessible for the first time in many years. We’ve just finished adding the first batch of documents, and more will be drip-fed onto the website over the next few weeks. Have a look, starting at the Reference Documents introductory page.

We have just received this from the MSA:

Many MSA members will be aware of Vnuk, a 2014 European Court judgement that threatens the future of all UK motorsport.

The Court ruled that the requirement for compulsory insurance should cover any use of a vehicle, so long as that use is consistent with the normal function of the vehicle. This would require all competition cars in motorsport to have compulsory third party insurance.

In responding to the Vnuk issue, the MSA has been working with a wide range of groups including the Motorsport Industry Association (MIA), and we are now calling on the motorsport community to respond to a European Commission consultation by 20 October. To view the MIA’s call to action, which the MSA fully supports, please click here.

The MSA has previously responded to a Department for Transport consultation on Vnuk. To view the MSA’s response to that consultation, click here.

LARA was delighted to receive, from Kent County Council, notification of Traffic Regulation Orders (TROs) on a number of Byways in the county. “Delighted” and “TRO” in the same sentence? Surely some mistake? But these are rather unusual TROs, made following a period of consultation with which LARA was involved.

They are all Seasonal Permanent Orders, prohibiting four wheeled motor vehicles (but not motorcycles) from using the Byways between 1st October and 30th April. So far so normal. But these Orders also permit closure “at additional times in the event of heavy rainfall, in response to the Met Office’s yellow weather warning for rain, for no longer than 5 working days”. This is just the sort of pragmatic and sensible approach which LARA has been advocating for years and, if implemented sensibly, should go a long way to preventing damage caused by irresponsible use of 4x4s during periods of wet weather in the summer. We do, of course, accept that periods longer than 5 days may be appropriate in some situations, and we’d be happy to discuss this with any other Councils contemplating Seasonal Permanent TROs.

You can read more about LARA’s approach to ‘targeted’ TROs in our Traffic Management Report, starting at Section 7.4 (19/27 in the PDF file).