Dave Tyson
Member
As some of you are aware an agreement has been signed between Natural Resources Wales and Cave Access Limited to permit recreational mine explorers and cavers to have legal access to certain mines on NRW property. The agreement was signed on the 3rd March 2015 and will run for a year with the option of annual renewal. CAL have had to do some risk assessments and management plans etc. to comply with the license. Some of these have been completed and we expect to get the rest done in the coming weeks. Some sites have access restrictions due to nesting birds or hibernating bats - Sorry, we have to abide by these and they were part of the license agreement. They shouldn't cause too many problems.
CAL have set up an interim (slow!) web-site
www.caveaccess.co.uk
which documents the agreement, the sites and the requirements. Basically mine explorers/cavers need to hold BCA insurance (red or green card) and need to register with CAL by sending an email (permits@caveaccess.co.uk) to us with their name, BCA number and club (or 'BCA' in the case of DIMS) as noted on the web-site. You will need to do this yearly as BCA insurance runs Jan-Dec.
We would also like a short email each time you visit a CAL site noting the site, leader, number in party (one is fine!) and the date (preferably before you go - but after would be OK). This enables us to show that:
(a) The agreement is working
(b) That there is a demand from the community to access the sites.
(c) That the mine explorer community can be trusted
Any feedback from visits would also be really helpful. The idea being that if we can demonstrate that the community 'behaves' itself we may then be able to add some more NRW sites on renewal and we may be able to use NRW as a reference so that other landowners may allow access to sites on their land.
The agreement has taken a lot of effort by many people and it almost didn't happen. It serves as a memorial to the vision of the late Elsie Little who started the process off, but sadly died before it could be realised.
Dave
[One of the three CAL directors]
CAL have set up an interim (slow!) web-site
www.caveaccess.co.uk
which documents the agreement, the sites and the requirements. Basically mine explorers/cavers need to hold BCA insurance (red or green card) and need to register with CAL by sending an email (permits@caveaccess.co.uk) to us with their name, BCA number and club (or 'BCA' in the case of DIMS) as noted on the web-site. You will need to do this yearly as BCA insurance runs Jan-Dec.
We would also like a short email each time you visit a CAL site noting the site, leader, number in party (one is fine!) and the date (preferably before you go - but after would be OK). This enables us to show that:
(a) The agreement is working
(b) That there is a demand from the community to access the sites.
(c) That the mine explorer community can be trusted
Any feedback from visits would also be really helpful. The idea being that if we can demonstrate that the community 'behaves' itself we may then be able to add some more NRW sites on renewal and we may be able to use NRW as a reference so that other landowners may allow access to sites on their land.
The agreement has taken a lot of effort by many people and it almost didn't happen. It serves as a memorial to the vision of the late Elsie Little who started the process off, but sadly died before it could be realised.
Dave
[One of the three CAL directors]
