Laning Myth Busters

by Lauren Eaton

Laning and rights of way in general are shrouded in misunderstandings. This isn’t a surprise, the law of the land is complex, so complex even professionals have a hard job resolving some conundrums, and most people prefer to lane than to spend their weekends reading legislation. But thankfully some do the latter on behalf of us all, otherwise we probably wouldn’t have many lanes left to drive.

It’s not just the legal side that causes confusion, misunderstanding, or argument though. Many aspects of our hobby have their own myths and misunderstandings, so we’ve taken a few of the most common ones and answered them here for you.

Abating an obstruction

You’re happily driving along when suddenly your path is blocked. A fallen tree or branch perhaps, it’s certainly not uncommon. But what can you do? What does the law say?

You have the right, where possible, to drive around it, but there are some caveats. If driving around it means driving onto private land, SSSI land (Site of Special Scientific Interest), causing damage, or entering farmed fields, then you cannot. Driving onto SSSI land - such as leaving the legal route on the Wayfarer for example - can get you a hefty fine. Causing damage to farmers' land can cause the landowner to lose money too.

If you watched Clarkson’s Farm there is a perfect example of this. He does some work on wet land which causes muddy ruts to appear, and while Clarkson states that it could not be avoided as there was work to be done, he is told that he should have chosen not to drive in the wet, and that the mud and ruts caused by tractor tyres could cost him £10-15,000.

If you ever wondered why farmers dislike recreational driving this is a big factor. They can be heavily penalised for driving their own land in the wet if it causes damage, so a bunch of laners doing it is never going to go down well, plus they’ll have to repair it! The bottom line is stick to the legal route and never enter private farmland, especially in the wet. You have the right to remove the obstruction, but again there are caveats.

If you have the equipment to move an obstacle to one side safely then this is fine. You may be carrying saws and be able to cut the branch into pieces to move to one side, this is fine as long as you leave the wood, because legally someone owns it, and taking it is theft (honest!).

If the obstruction is a locked gate this is more complicated. While a locked gate on a public road is illegal so is cutting locks, it is criminal damage.

While land owners in the majority will have no problem with us removing accidental obstructions like fallen branches, after all it saves them the job of doing it, obstructions that are purposefully put there are a different matter. Simply removing them may even make the matter worse.

Take Whitestones for example, illegal obstruction has been going on for years and constant removal of these objects has done nothing to tackle the problem, in fact it makes the perpetrator even more determined to find ways to block the lane that we cannot abate. It has become a game! Sometimes the only option is to turn around, take the official route and report the issues. In the case of Whitestones even that hasn’t worked, so we have begun legal action to address this.

Cut Backs & Clearances

It’s a common occurrence to come across tight and scratchy lanes. Some love to drive them, one look at Ralph my L322 and you can tell I do, but others value their paintwork. So, can you cut vegetation back legally?

Yes, if it is impeding your way along a public right of way, but again there are those pesky caveats!

Over winter there is no issue, but between the months of March and October more care must be taken. This is nesting season, and disturbing a nesting bird is illegal in the UK. This doesn’t stop us cutting an overhanging branch where it is clear there are no nests to disturb, but cutting back deep into hedgerows is not permitted unless the work is essential, and the area has been surveyed for nests.

The law is rather strange when it comes to cut backs and removal of obstructions. It states that it is legal to do so (taking into consideration the above caveats) as long as you do it there and then, but if you find a problem, nip home, and then return tooled up this is classed as 'organised clearance' and isn’t strictly legal without permission, which is why GLASS make a point of gaining that permission first before organising official clearance days.

GLASS is an authority, it owns the lanes (or thinks it does)!

GLASS is a user group, a national organisation made up of laners to represent all users of unsurfaced roads in the UK. It gives us a voice when decisions are being made about the roads we love to drive. Those unsurfaced roads are public roads and, like all other public roads, are managed by local authorities.

GLASS has no authority over them at all; what it does is advise the relevant authorities of problems while speaking from a perspective of the users of those roads. It cannot force an authority to do anything, unless through legal action when a council’s legal duties are being neglected.

GLASS can use Section 56 of the Highways Act 1980 if a council refuses to repair or maintain a public road, in fact anyone can serve a Section 56 whether they’re a rep, member, or non-member. GLASS can also object to closures and restrictions (as can any member of the public), advise on how to address issues without resorting to closure, begin the judicial review process if there is concern due process has not been followed, but it cannot of itself insist that a local authority does anything at all (without resorting to legal process if an LA has done something legally wrong, or failed to act).

This was covered in last month’s column in regard to Ramsden Road. People don’t like the PSPO, but blaming GLASS for that PSPO is simply nonsense, no user group of itself can impose or implement, or force any authority to impose or implement a legal traffic restriction. It is simply not possible.

Only reps can make a difference

While reps work very hard for the rest of us they do not have any superpowers! Reporting problems, objecting to traffic regulation orders, attending public meetings (note the word public!), beginning the S56 process, or calling the council to discuss concerns is something any member of the public can do. In fact we would love it if more did!

The only difference between the alleged ‘powers’ of a rep over anyone else is that they have the confidence to stand up and do it on behalf of everyone in their county, and they give up their own free time and diesel to do so. They also have the backing of a large national association that has the combined knowledge and finances of 6000 people at their disposal, which helps!

Black ops lane repair

'Black ops' is the community slang for carrying out repairs without seeking permission to do so. Usually they are small jobs like cut backs, maybe filling a hole or wash out, pretty much lengthsman-type duties that fly easily under the radar, but there are people who think it appropriate to cut out the authorities when it comes to much larger projects, although that could be far more damaging to our hobby than leaving a boggy bomb hole untouched until the council finally acts.

Lets take Happy Valley... Many of you may be aware there have been people threatening to “just go up and do it” due to totally understandable frustrations over how long the repair work is taking.

But many are not aware of how big the job is, who is involved, what environmental issues there are in the area, and the amount of boring, unnecessary politics that have been caused by laners themselves refusing to avoid the area, or threatening to go up and fix it black ops style.

Happy Valley is in Snowdonia National Park, so the park authority (SNPA) are involved as well as the local authority, and this land is seen as far more special than most.

The lane runs through private worked farm land, so land owners are involved. Land owners, who watch 4x4s winching their way through a 38 foot wide scar on environmentally sensitive land every weekend, are not happy. Nor are most of the laning community, but that is not the way those whose land is being damaged see it, we’re all now the enemy, which makes GLASS’s job a hundred times more difficult when we try to talk to them.

The land around the lane is peat, and is designated as a carbon store, for which the land owner receives grants for managing it and Natural Resources Wales are involved.

There’s a badger set under the tarmac lane that leads to it, again NRW are involved. The job requires about 100 tons of stone and SNPA absolutely refuse to allow that to be trailered over the already damaged land; a helicopter must be used, as must local stone.

The badgers (according to NRW) must be supplied with badger crossings that run under the tarmac before anyone is allowed to use the road to access the site, this means digging up 60ft of highway and some serious ground works going in before the tarmac is replaced.

The local farmer is royally unhappy with all of this and is at present refusing to allow any of this work to take place, which he kinda can’t do, but he does have some valid environmental concerns, and these have to be addressed by Gwynedd CC before any work can begin.

Knowing all that, not to mention the gargantuan fines anyone messing with a carbon store on private land within a National Park could be slapped with, does anyone now fancy popping up this Saturday to “just get it done”? Some people tried that a few years ago and only made everything worse.

Lane repair - it's ruined!

Grading lanes is pretty unpopular, but why is it done? Think about the official terms for lanes - byway open to ALL TRAFFIC, and unclassified county ROAD.

Lanes are part of the ‘ordinary road network’ and therefore legally speaking the local authority has the same legal duty to repair them as any other road or public right of way, and this includes the standards to which they are repaired.

Lanes should be maintained to a standard that allows any users to navigate them, and as they are multi-user carriageways this includes on foot, cycle, horseback, and horses with a carriage. Think of how many lanes you’d want to attempt pulling a carriage along! But they should allow those who enjoy doing so the ability to do just that.

Many of the lanes we drive, just like many of the footpaths people walk, are not strictly ‘up to code’ where maintenance is concerned. Many people choose them for that reason too, every user group likes to challenge themselves, this is why people climb and cycle down mountains, and why many laners head for the more unkempt routes to drive.

Since humans have existed we’ve wanted to push our limits and test our abilities, and there is nothing wrong with that, but this does not change the fact that strictly speaking the local authority has a legal obligation to stop anything becoming too much of a challenge to the average user.

Like it or not it is how things are, and it does explain why when lanes are repaired they tend to be graded. It is also a matter of financial sense, one grading job may cost more on the day, but it will last far longer and cost less in the long run than repeatedly sending teams to patch problem spots ever will.

At the end of the day there are 20,000 lanes in the UK, for every one that gets graded there are thousands more with all sorts of types of terrain. No authority can afford to grade every lane in their county either so you’ll always have a mixture of terrain to choose from.

The most important factor is that if any road or right of way is not repaired eventually it will deteriorate to the point that no one will be able to use it. Once a road/RoW gets that bad it is more likely an authority will push for closure rather than begin a massive repair job, so while we might not always get what we want, the process keeps the lane open for us to drive.

2026 DMMO DEADLINE

We're going to lose all our lanes!

No, seriously, we’re not.

2026 is a massive topic that I will write a whole article about at some point, but not today! I’ve whittled on enough as it is.

2026 is the deadline we have to modify the definitive map. This is the map each council holds that records byways open to all traffic (also footpaths and bridleways) in that specific county. It does not include UCRs, they are recorded on the List of Streets.

Come January 2026 we will no longer be able to add byways to the Definitive Map, not that we can do this more than once in a blue moon anyway, thanks to NERC (The Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006).

Nor will we be able to change the status of a route, as in upgrade to byway from footpath (Ha! Yeah that’s almost impossible anyway, again thanks to NERC), or from byway to footpath or bridleway, via a process called a Definitive Map Modification Order (DMMO).

Simply put, after the 2026 deadline DMMOs will be scrapped and what is recorded on the Definitive Map on that day will remain as it is forever (ok, there is a 5 year extension to the deadline, but that won’t be open for new DMMOs, just ones that haven’t been processed by the original deadline day).

To summarise, once the deadline passes we can’t ‘lose’ any more byways, their status can’t be changed. This is good news indeed!

During the process people are panicking that other user groups will submit DMMOs to downgrade every single byway. Explaining why this isn’t anywhere near the threat some believe it to be is going to take a while, so I’ll do it another day, but suffice to say the situation is not what some believe it to be and nor is the level of threat to us. Calm down folks!

Laning information is secret

It really isn’t.

Public roads are public, as is information pertaining to them. Local authorities have a legal duty to consult the public on matters pertaining to closures/stopping up roads, and they have a legal duty to have a Local Access Forum (LAF).

Now I don’t mean they have a legal right to take the proverbial, although some do try on the odd occasion! I mean to have a LAF which is an advisory team made up of people who have experience of and/or a vested interest in local rights of way.

Anyone can join, although each LAF can only have 22 members, but any member of the public can attend and watch, or submit questions to the committee. Just as they can during a Public Inquiry, or do using their rights under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 - just email the council and ask, they have to tell you.

Notice the words ‘public’, ‘freedom’ and ‘access’ get used a lot, that is because the public have access to all sorts of information they rarely bother to find out.

Being a part of GLASS doesn’t necessarily allow us any further access to information, the difference is that we know where to go to get it (although anyone can find that out with a bit of time spent using Google), and we have legal brains to work out what the best course of action is once we have it.

In fact you can’t represent a user group or organisation at a LAF, you have to represent yourself as a user, so in some ways 'being GLASS' doesn’t help at all.

We may be involved in meetings that are not open to any member of the public to attend, which is because we ask to be involved, or offered our assistance as soon as an issue arose, and so do local residents, land and business owners, or anyone else with an interest. It’s more a matter of the effort we put into being involved than anything being a secret or inaccessible to others.

That’s all from me on this subject, but I have a little more to say on the next few pages.

Lauren x