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Traffic Regulation Orders in the Dales National Park

A ten league stride was taken by the Dales National Park Authority’s Access Committee at its meeting on 17 April 2008. It voted to authorize the imposition of full, 24 hour, 7 days a week traffic regulation orders on eight of the most vulnerable green lanes in the Dales. So, barring legal proceedings against the National Park (an unlikely prospect, for the Authority has been absolutely scrupulous in its handling of the matter), TROs will be in place by the end of the summer on the following routes: Ling Gill, Arncliffe Cote, Stockdale Lane, The High Way, Cam High Road, Foxup Road, and Gorbeck Road.

The results of the public consultation, which were laid before the committee, and which informed the committtee’s decision, were plain. For every off-roader who objected to the proposed orders, there were more than three members of the public who supported them. Moreover, while the opposition to the orders came exclusively from off-roaders, the support for them came from a wide range of Dales opinion – from farmers, cyclists, parish councils, the Yorkshire Dales Society and many others.

The good news does not end there. The Access Committee also resolved to take a further five green lanes on to the next stage of public consultation. The lanes are, Horsehead Pass, Barth Bridge to Garsdale, Mastiles Lane, Long Lane (Clapham to Selside), and Carlton to Middleham High Moor.

Traffic Regulation Orders in the Dales National Park

Under the NERC Act, National Park Authorities were given the powers to impose traffic regulation orders on green lanes. Hitherto, the powers had lain with highway authorities. The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority is currently working its careful way through a public consultation on the possibility of imposing orders on 15 of the most sensitive routes - 8 in one batch, and 5 in another. It is too early to be sure how this consultation will turn out, but it is encouraging to see the Authority exercising its new powers. The first results should be visible by the summer of 2008.

A real breakthrough: the NERC bill passes into law

The two chief provisions of the NERC Act, which came into force on 2 May 2006, are these:

1. Public motor vehicle rights are extinguished on all routes that are on the definitive map as bridleways or footpaths (with a few exceptions, noted below.) This means that if an up-to-date Ordnance Survey map shows that a route is a bridleway or footpath, recreational vehicle users have no right to be there. If they do ride and drive on footpaths and bridleways they are open to prosecution. This provision of NERC brings much-needed clarification to the map, and it gives protection to footpaths and bridleways from challenges by motor-users: they can no longer claim that these routes have underlying vehicular rights.

2. National Park Authorities will have the power to impose Traffic Regulation Orders, prohibiting recreational motor vehicles from green lanes. (Formerly, these powers were retained by Highway Authorities and were only rarely used.)

Exceptions: If a properly-completed application for a vehicular byway (BOAT) was lodged before 20 January 2005 it will be processed under the old, ‘horse-and-cart’ rules, which offer vehicle users the prospect that motor-vehicular rights may be confirmed on the claimed routes. All applications lodged after 20 January will be treated as applications for restricted byways – ie routes that bear rights for pedestrians, pedal cyclists, equestrians, and essential motor vehicles (eg farm or emergency vehicles) only. There are a number of these exempted applications in the Dales.

There is, however, a weakness in the Act. Routes that are ‘Unclassified County Roads’ (UCRs) – that is to say, publicly-maintainable routes whose exact status is uncertain - are exempt from the Act. How many UCRs will eventually have to be recognised as bearing rights for motor vehicles is unknown. There are over 100 kms of UCRs in the Dales. In the absence of clarity about their status, it is likely that opportunistic 4x4 drivers and motorcyclists will insist on using them.

More good news – this time from Blubberhouses Moor

EnglishNature has produced a report on the state of this vast moor in the Nidderdale Area of Natural Beauty. The report shows that the damage to the moor caused by recreational vehicles is so severe that if the moor were to be closed to them for five years, parts of the damaged sections would still not have had time to regenerate. In the light of this damning report, and with the support, we are pleased to report, of a number of recreational vehicle user groups, the highway authority has imposed traffic regulation orders on all the byways that criss-cross the moor. The signs and the barriers were installed in early October 2005. Considering its proximity to the huge urban centres of Leeds and Bradford, Blubberhouses Moor used to be a very remote and peaceful place, with grassy tracks winding across the heather. The tracks are now morasses, and at the weekend, the noise of motorbikes echoes across the moor. It will take time before the beneficial effects of the TROs are seen and heard, but already the number of vehicles traversing the moor has fallen substantially. The TROs promise that both the fabric and the ambience of the moor will eventually be restored.

Experimental traffic regulation orders in the Dales: still in place.

The eighteen-month experimental traffic regulation orders (ETROs) that were imposed, in March 2004, on 4 badly-damaged green lanes in the Craven area of the Dales came up for their first review in July 2005. A bulky and painstaking report on the effect of the orders was prepared jointly by the National Park Authority and North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC). The report shows that:

• Compliance with the orders has been good. Motorbike use of the lanes, for example, has dropped by 90%.
• The rutting of the lanes caused by recreational vehicles has not yet healed, but even so, the lanes look better. They are grassing over well.
• The damage caused by recreational vehicles is much more serious and extensive than that caused by agricultural vehicles.
• The quality of the Dales that users of the lanes value most highly, after scenic grandeur, is peace and tranquillity. This quality returned to the 4 green lanes when recreational vehicles were prohibited.
• Nearly half of the respondents in the perception surveys carried out during the experiment said that recreational vehicles should be prohibited altogether from green lanes in the National Park.

The ETROS were due to expire in September 2006, a month or so before responsibility for the making of TROs in the Dales National Park passed to the National Park Authority. There was, therefore, the prospect of a gap opening during the interim which would have been filled by the return of 4x4s and motorbikes to the 4 routes. However, NYCC made fresh orders on the routes that will bridge the gap. How quickly the Park Authority will be able to make the 4 orders permanent remains to be seen. But there is no doubt about what the general public wants. Here are three indicators:

• In March 2004, ICM Ltd carried out a public opinion survey on countryside issues. They found that 87% of the population favour a ban on recreational vehicles on rights of way in national parks and other protected landscapes. Only 8% want vehicles to be permitted to use such routes. (5% don’t know.)
• In July, YDGLA submitted a petition to the chairman of North Yorkshire County Council. 4,000 people - chiefly residents of, and visitors to the Dales National Park - had signed their name to a call for legislation, local or national, to prohibit recreational vehicles from the Dales National Park and the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
• · In the report on the impact of the ETRO scheme, virtually half (49%) of respondents to the perception survey wanted recreational vehicles banned from all green lanes in the national park. The report on the ETRO scheme analyses the individual written submissions that were sent in. Of the 193 who wrote in, 183 supported the scheme. 111 writers, from the total of 193, wanted the orders to be made permanent. 55 said that they wanted the scheme to be extended across the park.