LANING LIFE

by Lauren Eaton

Read about green laning as seen through Lauren ‘Sunshine’ Eaton's windscreen at The Green Lane Association, and find out what’s hot, or not, in the laning world each month. Enjoy!

Welcome to 2022, let us hope it is better than the last one!

While we do not know what is in store over the next 12 months, thankfully the world appears to be more open to exploring and adventuring than it has for quite some time. I certainly plan on being out and about a lot more than I have been.

GLASS have a lot planned for this year already. As Laning Life in issue 33 explained, we now have more members than ever before, and this is vital to protecting and preserving the lanes for all to use. The big New Year project is the repair of a byway in Leicestershire. As usual though no project can ever be simple - damned if you do, damned if you don’t!

As some of you may be aware I have been project managing a significant byway repair in Leicestershire recently. Well, actually not just recently, it has taken over a year to get to this stage, not to mention some legal action to get to the point where physical work can begin.

This long drawn out and often complicated process is not uncommon, it isn’t even all that long in the world of rights of way, but this is where GLASS can make a difference; we can help speed processes up…sometimes.

I’m not going to get into the whys and wherefores of the time leading up to the repair work, that’s all water under the bridge, and would require an essay the length of War and Peace. What I am going to detail is the social elements of undertaking this kind of work, and also show (yet again) how the media skew any positive work 4x4 drivers are involved in.

Project managing repairs can be as much a matter of psychology, negotiation, conflict resolution, and maintaining an exceptionally long fuse in the face of some rather unpleasant behaviour. Emotions can run high when it comes to the rights of way network, far more than many would believe until they see it.

I am passionate about laning don’t get me wrong, but I’ve never been brought to tears over a byway or unclassified road, but I have had to wipe a few away from very emotional local residents.

I’ve never been aggressive with someone either, but I’ve been on the receiving end of it countless times from landowners, as much as other laners; there’s an awful lot of that about.

During this project I was given an attack alarm by the police and told to install an app that links (by audio or video) directly to them and/or a specified in case of emergency contact. The app is triggered if my phone senses a fall, blow, or I do one of several subtle things to it, says it all really.

On this particular project police officers have had to tell people to back off from me for simply explaining that a byway is a public road, and that no it cannot be closed due to a maintenance requirement, and there has been similar from our own community.

It’s no secret that I have a raging ‘fan club’ [sarcasm] online, but why people who want lanes to be kept open and responsibly used (and this goes for laners, walkers, horse riders, local residents, and my fan club) would throw daggers at someone they don’t know, who spends a HUGE amount of time doing exactly what they say they want, is beyond me.

It does not end during the work either. I turned up to site one morning (a two-hour drive away from my home) to be met by a dog walker. She, like many people who had spoken to our very diplomatic contractor Tommy (who deserves a medal at this point), presumed we were going to repair the byway and then close it to vehicles.

Protecting our lanes can be quite an intimidating process.

No amount of explaining that it was lack of maintenance by the local authority that had caused the problem rather than legal driving, something that GLASS funded to put right through legal action, would wash. Nor did the fact that it was us 'pesky off roaders' who got things moving, were project managing the work, and paying for a significant chunk of it. She was livid that the byway would be repaired and remain a byway open to ALL traffic.

Before levelling

After levelling

The same negativity continued in the green laning community. An update post on the main GLASS Facebook page, and the contractor’s own business page, turned into a trolling free for all!

We had saved a lane from what had been the absolute certainty of closure, we had brought the locals round to understanding and even appreciating our input, and we had won the contract to fix it at the council’s expense. This could not get any better for laning, yet laners were hounding those involved. Some even turned up on site and intimidated a council contractor!

Sometimes, in fact often, it really feels like we cannot win, and sadly not just because of those outside our community.

Then the media got wind of the work. It was not unexpected as I’d sent out a press release that detailed the positive results of a lot of hard work. But the reports were not based on my words or the truth, they were based on nothing but bias - read one of the articles here.

The reporter had made no effort to speak to the project manager (me), and had simply made up a tale of terrible truck owners and their alleged tirade of tyranny. He failed to respond to my complaints too, although based on dozens of similar historic cases that is no surprise.

The problem is, with all the public displays of aggression from the laning community, even though I complained to the publication on their behalf, it fell on deaf ears.

How can I, or anyone else, argue against written, and very public proof that some 4x4 owners think repairing lanes is wrong, that mud plugging is right, and threaten those who work to preserve the network and damage the physical repairs?

This is genuinely the biggest threat to laning at present. We do not "lose tons of lanes every year” as I often see mentioned on social media, we really do not. Since the NERC Act 2006 we have lost less than 2% of the total remaining network, we have added a few too, and GLASS are now unrecognisable and far more effective than we were only 5 years ago let alone in 2006.

Drainage ditch before

Draining ditch after

Off piste activity is appalling and yes, a definite threat, but far and above all that is the aggression and militancy of a portion of our community. It is our enemy from within, and it is genuinely destroying many opportunities others work hard to secure for us.

I cannot count the times I’ve turned up on site somewhere and a landowner, Access Officer, Ranger, or other, has mentioned seeing some of the appalling posts and witch hunts online - I have mentioned them before here. They can be helpful in a weird way, it certainly makes people sympathetic to GLASS, or even me personally, and it can differentiate responsible laners from the rest, but what it does not do is make stakeholders confident that any amount of working with us will help keep the hooligans from the lanes if they keep them open or we repair them.

At this point I can negotiate with the best and the worst of them to keep a lane open, but I cannot argue against blatant threats of destruction, I also cannot deny some people will carry them out either, I have been the victim of that more than once and seen many lanes fall victim too.

The Leicestershire byway was trashed mid repair work by those who do not want it fixed. It was a miracle it was being kept open in the first place, to continue to drive it while legally closed and undo the work we are doing there is just asking for it to be lost.

Imagine turning up the morning after, the only 4x4 driver on site, faced by a group of our haters, and explaining why we should continue and keep it open for these people to return. That was not my best day in work I can tell you that.

It is difficult, really difficult, to get the powers that be on side with us, and there are few who have the niche knowledge and experience to argue the legal toss over rights of way, especially those willing to do so to a live audience of 4x4 haters. Even solicitors rarely come across the legislation we at GLASS pour over daily, there are few 'experts' nationwide, and even fewer who are laning friendly.

We are looking for more people to come on board and help, but it is not just slim pickings, its almost impossible when those who might have helped out see the backlash against those who already do. I mean, would you do it?

Those of us who are already in that position cannot help, but question why we continue sometimes. Picture it - on Christmas Day you are sat with your family, some who have travelled 12 hours to see you for the first time in over two years thanks to covid, and your phone is going off a dozen times an hour, some of it with hatred because you fixed a lane.

After more pings from your phone than sprouts eaten, your family ask if they can just have one day where they do not have to share you with threats, trolling, or work, and you really start to wonder.

But what is the alternative?

Have nowhere to drive away from it all, nowhere to explore, nowhere to lose the world, no reason to need the vehicles that are as much a part of my family as I am! Not at chance!

While the gobshites can carry on with their vitriol all they like, I can turn a phone off. I can drive to where there is no signal and enjoy the fruits of our labour in peace, while they sit at home, bitter at the world, raging on screen at someone they have never met. It will always be worth it.

And so, the work on the Leicestershire byway will continue this month. It will be repaired, it will be reopened, it will be run another three hundred times by a very muddy Celyn the overlanding dog, and I am sure there will be more vitriol to face, but once it is finished, I will be off to Scotland to drive some of the best roads and trails in the country, away from the gob almighties.

To those of you who will return to Spring Lane, and enjoy the continued responsible use of a legal byway fixed thanks to your support, enjoy it with our thanks!

It is you folks we do this for and always will.

On behalf of everyone at GLASS we hope you have all had a stellar Christmas and New Year! Again, huge thanks to everyone who supports the cause. I will be back next month with news from around the UK, and hopefully some news on the next phase of the Whitestones saga.

Stay safe and happy laning!

Lauren x