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SOLUTIONS
The NERC Act (2006) goes a fair way toward a solution to the problem. The act has put a stop to nearly all new claims for BOATs, and it has given National Park authorities the power to impose traffic regulation orders (TROs). A TRO, prohibiting recreational motor vehicles, may be imposed on any route if it is judged that the damage and nuisance caused by vehicles justifies it. When YDGLA was founded, in 2002, we never imagined that so much progress would be made, so quickly. But the public mood in the Dales has turned out to be in harmony with the public mood throughout the country, and Parliament has finally responded. What remains to be done?
1. The Dales National Park Authority’s ‘guiding principle’ is that recreational motor vehicles on green lanes are ‘inappropriate’. The Authority must be encouraged to give practical expression to this principle by systematically imposing traffic regulation orders, thereby prohibiting recreational vehicles from all the green lanes within the national park. This is likely to be a fairly lengthy process, for no extra government money came with the new TRO-making powers, and TROs are expensive items. Further, TROs are likely to be contested by vehicle user groups.
2. In the Nidderdale AONB, the Authority has no powers to make its own TROs. The powers still lie with North Yorkshire County Council. NYCC must be encouraged and persuaded to protect the green lanes in the AONB by imposing TROs on them, starting with the most damaged. A valuable start has been made with the TROs on Blubberhouses Moor (See ‘Latest News’). The network of heavily-used green lanes around Scar House Reservoir should be next on the list.
3. There are still a number of BOAT applications that have escaped the cut-off date of 20 January 2005 imposed by the NERC Act. The list includes applications for motor status on some of the most beautiful routes in the Dales – Foxup Road, and Arncliffe Cote, for example. We need to be certain that the applications are indeed valid, that if they are, the historical provenance of the routes in question is established accurately, and if BOATs have to be conceded, then they must be swiftly followed by TROs.
4. There will inevitably be problems with vehicles on the routes known as ‘Unclassified County Roads’(UCRs), for these lanes have not been caught by NERC. The process of finally clarifying the rights of way status of each and every UCR will take years. In the meantime, TROs should be used to prohibit recreational motor vehicles.
5. Green lanes must be effectively policed. Naturally enough, at present, a hard-pressed police force sets a rather low priority on catching illegal 4x4 and motorcycle users. But things are changing. The weight of complaints from the public to the Park and AONB authorities, and to the police, steadily increases. The police are responding. Prosecutions for riding and driving on routes that have no vehicular rights, for using vehicles that are not road-worthy, and for riding and driving dangerously are beginning to be leveled. The vehicles of persistent offenders may be confiscated – and even crushed. The police have already held two days of action in the National Park, designed to raise the profile of law enforcement. The NERC Act will make the police’s job somewhat easier: it will clarify which routes are legal, and which are not.