It?s lovely and indeed long. A few comments:
1. You cannot invoke BCA insurance as protection for landowners. That is a private venture that could cease to exist at any time. In fact, if you follow your own arguments it is already completely pointless on access land from the landowners perspective. Whether cavers want third party insurance is their own affair.
2. Crow specifically excludes commercial activity as it is self-evident landowners are entitled to both control and share in any income from the land. That covers all paid guiding. They may waive it, but they will obviously defend the principle.
3. All the ?excluded? activities are not banned, merely requiring permission. It is not at all unreasonable that Joe Public would think caving is no different to horse riding or cycling - activities with orders of magnitude more participation.
4. The problems will be in the detail. I will give you a scenario. I go up on the fell and dig out a clint to a depth of three feet. I proudly announce my new cave and assert an inalienable right to enter it and indeed do some light fettling until it reaches a depth of several hundred feet, scaffolded the whole way. Some might call it a mine, and that would be an interesting legal discussion given the vast historic case law on subsurface rights.
5. Good luck implementing access control or gates on CRoW land if there is a legal right to enter. No court would touch it if access was forced. I imagine this is the main legitimate concern of environmental quangos.
I would note we current have unrestricted access in practice to caves on CRoW land in England, and specific access in Scotland, the issue in Wales is one of governance and behaviours. If you elect the Stasi, you get what?s coming to you. It?s prob over a thousand years since my ancestors waded ashore in SW Wales and axed the locals, but that still counts as being an incomer in some parts.
