LANING LIFE

by Lauren Eaton

The Valley of Intolerance: You are not welcome here!

A recent blog post pertaining to 'off roading' in the Ceiriog Valley has sparked outrage from the responsible green laning community. (The article can be read here - https://bit.ly/Llanblogger )

Many green laners know the area well as it is home to the iconic 'Wayfarer', a lane that GLASS offered physical and financial assistance to repair several years ago, but despite this offer, a public crowd fund run by GLASS raising £13,000, and initial assurances from Wrexham County Council that work would begin in 2019, the lane remains closed under a Temporary Traffic Regulation Order.

The area became even more famous due to continuing incidents along a route known as 'Whitestones'. Prior to malicious, purposeful, and illegal obstruction this lane was no more well-known than any other of the thousands across the UK, but since boulders, tree stumps, spikes, and some grizzly purpose made caltrops and modified farm equipment were strewn across its surface, it soon caught the eye of the community.

If the illegal obstructions were an attempt to put people off visiting the area it didn’t work, the area became infamous!

These illegal and dangerous items have continued to block and litter the public right of way for years, and while the blog post talks of concern for the safety of local residents, who allegedly wish to use these lanes to exercise, there was strangely no mention of the horrific sharp metal constructions often found hidden between rocks or sunken into puddles lying in wait to injure walkers, horses and riders, as well motorised users who innocently comes across them.

It would be pertinent to note at this point that green laners have walked this lane countless times removing sharps and items that look like something from a medieval torture museum, as well as removing many boulders and tree stumps illegally blocking the right of way. Several laners have paid for metal detectors to sweep the lane at their own expense.

The Green Lane Association has invested in cameras to catch the culprit only to find them stolen or smashed. At no point have any reports to the police or council been fruitful, neither have local residents assisted in the clean up operations. No thanks was ever forthcoming, and of course no one living locally has ever seen anyone manoeuvring huge stumps and boulders up there. Yet every single 4x4 is noticed and noted as a menace, even the local vet coming to a farm in his own 4x4 caused an alert to be sent out between residents of the valley.

Not only has the public right of way, which has had wheeled, hoofed, and foot public access rights since it was first used, been dangerous to use for several years, it has since become blocked to any and all users by illegal damage done to the road surface and a local water course in an attempt to stop vehicular users driving it.

Several years ago a 4x4 accidentally slid into this same water course only to be blamed for all manner of alleged environmental damage and pollution of the local water supply. Yet now the same watercourse has been dug up and purposefully diverted across the lane in what can only be described as a huge act of environmental vandalism carried out only to stop use of the road, there is not a peep from the locals about it.

It seems at odds with the message of the blog post, if safety and the environment rather than prohibiting motorised use is the major issue, why is the reader not made aware of the awful damage done to an ancient road, water supply and local farmland?

It seems that now the lane is not accessible to anyone the local residents are happy, and can ignore the trenches dug into the land, damage to a local water supply, not to mention the spikes, caltrops, rocks, and boulders laying across these lanes that they apparently wish to use in peace and tranquillity themselves. Surely it is quite clear that these illegal actions are far more prohibitive to local users than the presence of motorised vehicles legally using a road?

The blog drones on with the usual accusations that green laners are 'thrill seekers', a laughable notion when aimed at those who bumble around the countryside at average speeds of 5-15mph, often lower. Green lanes are unsurfaced roads, anything faster would cause expensive damage to vehicles or a potentially serious accident, which is why the GLASS code of conduct suggests a maximum speed of 12mph. Thankfully accidents while green laning are almost unheard of.

Allegations of crime happening simply because people are driving public roads are mentioned several times. What these crimes are is not mentioned, the only misdemeanours that GLASS have been made aware of are people continuing to drive the Wayfarer while it is under a TRO.

No one is arguing that this should not happen, green laners in particular, but why attack the whole laning community, especially when they have offered to assist to repair the storm damage that caused the closure, and campaign to stop illegal driving?

The next obvious question would be what are the police doing about it? They certainly haven’t acted upon the illegal and dangerous obstruction of these roads which is why Whitestones is still impassable and dangerous to anyone whether in a vehicle, on horseback or on foot.

Lack of maintenance is mentioned, which is the sole responsibility of the local authority who has a legal duty to repair all adopted roads in their county whether surfaced or not. The fact that the surfaced roads in the area are undermaintained may well be a driving factor in this propaganda piece.

It is no secret and completely understandable that local residents would like their roads fixed, if you’ve visited the area in the last few years you can soon see why, but the accusation that “the area attracts off-road bike users in particular, due to the state of the roads”. This would suggest that this whole fuss is aimed at getting the tarmac repaired, while blaming it on those who come to the area to drive off said tarmac, rather than the authority who has a duty to maintain them.

If local residents wish to force the council to act they should be putting pressure on these local councillors and not standing shoulder to shoulder with them for a photo-opportunity!

The Green Lane Association has used Section 56 of the Highways Act 1980 to begin legal proceedings against Wrexham County Council to get Whitestones repaired, there is no reason that local residents could not have done the same about any other road in the county.

The same can be said for the police.

If crimes are being committed what are they doing about it? What is their management plan? Surely they have one if things are so bad? The A55 is pretty dodgy at the best of times, at its worst people die due to poor and illegal driving, shall we close that too?

It is abhorrent that anyone would believe that restricting public access to the countryside and legal public roads is a preferable alternative than holding a local authority or the police to account over dereliction of legal duty to maintain and police the area for the safety of all.

While vehicular users are offering funding, labour, time, and risking themselves, and their vehicles, to remove dangerous items from public roads, they are simultaneously being told they are not welcome in the area and are being threatened with measures to deter them from enjoying their time in the countryside.

Far more repugnant than that is the insinuation that a legal green laner, who was threatened with being shot by a land owner, not to mention another member of his party assaulted, must have been behaving inappropriately and somehow deserves to be on the receiving end of a serious firearms offence, and an assault.

Local councillor Trevor Bates stated, “I recently heard of drivers being threatened with a shotgun which makes one wonder what pushed a person to such extremes.”

I, the author of this article, was the very person who published that information on local laning groups that Trevor is a member of, so I know exactly how it has been spun to fit the rhetoric - the incident didn’t even occur in Wrexham!

Thankfully the green laners who were assaulted caught the whole thing on video which proves who was at fault and exactly what happened, but in this case it is not the details of the incident that matter, what is vitally important is that a threat to human life is being spun and used against the victim by someone in public office.

What sort of human being threatens to kill (or sees such a threat as a publicity opportunity) to stop people engaging in a legal hobby?

This whole diatribe has nothing to do with safety, the environment, or even human life at this point, it’s all about bias, and the lengths people will go to in order to get what they want, and what they want is to remove public access to public roads on the basis of where these people come from and what they drive.

The blinkered bias is more than obvious when Trevor goes on to talk about situations in areas like the Lake District and Yorkshire. He has obviously not researched the matters.

The infamous Lake District case, which involved a two year assessment carried out by the Lake District National Park Authority themselves due to the allegations of anti-4x4 lobbyists. This report found many holes in said allegations which angered the lobbyists who called for a judicial review of the report. The judge backed every point in the assessment report.

The allegations were false, exaggerated, 'data' was skewed, irrelevant or duplicated, the methods used to collect the data were dubious at best, and the 'wrecked countryside and anti-social behaviour' coupled with the exaggerated numbers of vehicular users were not evident on the ground during the assessment by the park authority that manages the area.

Yorkshire will of course pertain to Ramsden Road, where a Public Space Protection Order will be applied to restrict usage to a small number of lanes. In both cases motorised users were consulted and worked with local authorities and local residents, but in the case of the Ceiriog Valley, despite many locals including the local councillor having the personal contact details of local GLASS reps, executive officers, and regional coordinators, no effort was made to include motorised users in this matter.

If a solution was really something that locals, the council, police, and landowners wanted, then it is unarguable that motorised users simply must be involved.

Offers of assistance with maintenance work from motorised users have been on the table for years and not accepted, little to no action has been forthcoming from the local authority or police despite constant reports and requests from green laners for something to be done about genuine incidents, like Whitestones and the continued illegal use of the Wayfarer, and yet it is motorised users who are to blame?

Piffle! It isn’t motorised users laying spikes on public roads or covering for whoever is doing it that’s for sure, or suggesting that anyone deserves to be shot for simply wanting to visit this beautiful area.

That’s all from me this month folks! Happy Laning! Lauren x