graham said:
Think the paddlers might disagree with you.
Canoeing has been mentioned a few times within these threads usually in the form of a warning. I'm not sure it's a relevant example though. It's a long time since I was a BCU member and I'm not any sort of paddler nowadays so some of this is from memory only.
Caneoing was to be include in CRoW right up to the final readings of the white paper but was excluded after very heavy lobbying by the fishing fraternity based on an economic objection (though not solely the only objection). This was taken up by the Conservatives who wanted the exclusion to be placed in the final Act (the Tories very much opposed CRoW in totality) and the Labour government allowed it as it didn't want a protracted implementation of CRoW (the Act being a big part of the Labour "thing"). Not only did canoeing get excluded but so did paddling/swimming - remind me how many bathers/wild swimmers have been turfed off the land?
The other objections lay around a) the necessity to map the waterways (cost) and b) that access to the open waterways might be problematic where there were no rights of way on private land (technical).
So arguably canoeing had its moment, its test, and failed. Caving didn't even get to the table. That for me is the travesty, that the then national body thought itself not needing to ask its membership. Has canoeing somehow lost out for having the temerity to ask for open access? Not really, canoeing is still a massive sport both in terms of participation and influence and much (and I mean fricking loads) "pirating" of rivers happens week in and week out. Also the BCU hasn't given up the fight.
We share the same space notionally as mountaineers, walkers, climbers (they go up and over the land and we go down it). The conflict between cavers and landowners just doesn't stack up no matter how much anonymous and anecdotal evidence is put forward. Surely we have a strong precedent for our not being any more of an inconvenience then those that have gone before us for the last fourteen years.