CRoW Liaison Officer Report to 2017 BCA AGM
Apologies in advance for both the length of this report and the criticism it poses at times. I applaud the voluntary efforts of many council members of BCA especially the chairman who works very hard on our behalf.
The BCA campaign to confirm existing rights of access under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 has not been as effective this year as last. The BCA has allowed the campaign to become bogged down in internal politics centred on a single sentence of the constitution. Complaints from the Council of Southern Caving Clubs (made to the April 2016 council meeting) that the campaign was unconstitutional highlighted the sentence, ?That the owners and tenants of property containing caves have the right to grant or withhold access?. This, it was claimed, prevented the BCA from campaigning for CRoW to apply to caving. This is refuted by many and does not take into account the fact that the Land Reform Act (Scotland) had already taken that right away north of the border and the CRoW Act may well have already taken it away to the south. This had already been dealt with by BCA Council on several occasions when the following statement had been agreed,
?BCA Council is fully aware of the Guiding Principles as outlined in sections 4.2 - 4.8 of the constitution and always seeks to act in line with these. However, the law of the land takes precedent over a constitution. Therefore, Council is happy that sections 4.4 - 4.8 are no impediment to BCA campaigning to change DEFRA?s current interpretation of the law, which by their own admission is not definitive.?
However, at last year?s AGM a new, amended motion was passed. This stated,
?To remit the issue of section 4.6 of the constitution to Council for consideration to return with a properly worded proposal presented at the next General Meeting. Meanwhile BCA will concentrate on conservation and landowner relations.?
The inclusion of the latter sentence of this motion showed a very substantive change and consequence from the original motion that had been properly tabled to the AGM. It effectively limited the campaign which was in progress at the time. Representatives of BCA groups and clubs attending the meeting could not have consulted their members on this major change and therefore it should never have been allowed. Following the AGM I received instructions from the Exec on how to proceed. These were somewhat ambiguous but never the less made it clear that I was to ?play it down? until after the next AGM, avoid being proactive in the media and concentrate on conservation and access issues. This I have done.
I have assisted the C&A officer wherever possible and I appreciated the vote of thanks from the January council meeting for the ?incredible amount of work getting the conservation message out.? I have also had a number of dealings with some major caving landowners mostly in the north of England. Some welcome all cavers, some are ambivalent and some would prefer a managed access system. However, even those, have stated that if the CRoW Act applies to caving then they are content to abide by the law of the land. There was never any talk of recriminations against cavers for pursuing access under CRoW.
It is difficult to see what more I can do to ?concentrate.... on landowner relations?. BCA itself is unable to approach landowners directly unless permitted through the regional councils. I note with dismay the comment in the minutes of the AGM which states, ?We would not wish to support anything that gives Tim Allen the chance to talk directly to landowners.? What is the motivation here when clearly I have spoken to many landowners without upsetting them? It is perhaps obvious that a landowner?s opinion is formed, in part, by the information he receives from his local caving contacts. These opinions may reflect the attitudes of those cavers and it is limited in the effect that BCA can have on this. I have asked the question below to the CSCC representative to Council at several meetings,
?I am unable to do much to improve landowner relations in the regions due to BCA restraints, especially on Mendip where many of the problems with CRoW has been reported. Could CSCC report on what progress they have made in allaying the landowner fears they were so concerned about??
The reply essentially stated that the CSCC had done nothing to allay reported fears as they were content with the status quo. There seems little BCA can do to improve this situation if the regional council have no wish to progress matters. However, on the subject of landowner relations BCA Council made the following statement.
?BCA Council has the utmost respect for landowners and recognises their right to decide how their land is used within the constraints of the law. It is now more than 15 years since the CRoW Act was introduced. At the time all sorts of potential concerns were raised by opponents of the legislation, but Council believes these have largely failed to materialise. Indeed in general landowners now seem content with the legislation and Council does not see this changing if caving is shown to also be included as a permitted activity. Furthermore CRoW legislation reduces landowners? potential liability to the lowest level possible in law and, as such, Council believes the majority of landowners will benefit if the CRoW Act is understood to apply to caves.?
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Reported in October, I had written a report to the exec intended to answer the question of whether the BCA has fulfilled any obligation it has in connection with the later part of point number two of the BCA poll on CRoW, namely, ?To consult with landowners and open communication with the Country Land and Business Association.? This concluded that the CLBA had made its position clear on numerous occasions and dialogue was unlikely to be effective. However, since then the implications of Brexit are becoming more apparent to farmers and land managers who may well loose out from cuts to moorland subsidies. Establishing the recreational value of these areas is becoming of more interest where previous unlikely partnerships may now seem attractive. I shall be looking at these.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Also at the October Council meeting I made statements to the meeting which were not reported in the minutes. The first part of the statement reminded Council of the historical support there had been for wider public access to caves from national caving bodies. The first goes back to 1949, the time of the National Park and Access to the Countryside Act (NPAC). Here the Cave Research Group are calling on individual cavers to lobby their MPs for greater access to caves. They state,
?Although we are interested in being able to walk across the country-side to the entrances of caves, our prime objective is to be able to gain access freely to the caves?.
In 1976 the National Caving Association and the BMC working with the Central Council for Physical Recreation instigated a statement on access which clearly backed public access for both outdoor recreations and highlighted how voluntary agreements weren?t working as intended by NPAC.
1n 1998 the NCA made a detailed response to the consultation paper on the CRoW Act. Despite what others have said since it is clear from the actual submission that the NCA supported the inclusion of caves and caving in the Act.
When the CRoW Act was introduced, Michael Meacher, Minister for the Environment, stated in the House of Commons that the Bill, ?finally achieves the aims and aspirations of the great post-war Labour legislation the National Park and Access to the Countryside Act, fulfilling the yearnings of the British people?for full rights of access to the beauties of the countryside?.and finally bringing to reality the dream of Lloyd George that nobody should be a trespasser in the land of their birth.? He went on to remind the house that, ?the decision to legislate has been supported by very substantial majorities in the responses to extensive consultations and opinion polls.?
The public majority was reflected in BCAs own poll of December 2014 when members gave a clear mandate for BCA to campaign for cave access under CRoW. BCA Council has very much supported that position but a minority has worked tirelessly to undermine it.
The second part of my statement reported on the level of unpleasant personal abuse I was receiving on social media because of my BCA role. This extended to attacks on friends who came to my aid and reached a level no decent person should tolerate. The name-calling appears to come from a small group of individuals who are vehemently opposed to CRoW. It is a classic tactic, if you cannot win the argument attack the person making the argument. BCA should not be fooled by it. These are attempts to cast doubt on my integrity and to undermine my position.
More recently, ahead of this AGM, rumours are being spread questioning the validity of my BCA role. Apparently I am an impostor in the role and BCA have until recently colluded in this deception. I have asked the exec to make a statement to squash these rumours but to date their response has been totally unsatisfactory especially as comments by the exec seem to have been a contributory factor. I seem to be left to defend myself.
For the record, the position of CRoW Liaison Officer was appointed at the June 2015 Council meeting. Due process was followed in line with the BCA constitution as reflected in the minutes of that meeting. I have since carried out those duties as mandated by the BCA Council. All my efforts and reports have been accepted by Council, and we have even had a specific unanimous vote which supported the work I was doing.
Some members have suggested my efforts as CRoW Liaison Officer are not as well supported as they should be or that I am ?hung out to dry? by elements within BCA. It appears to me that the name-calling minority do receive undeserved attention and are pandered to with private meetings, personal communications, etc, whilst the silent majority are largely ignored. This is a problem for BCA?s credibility within its wider membership.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
The proposed constitutional amendments to section 4.6 is not something that I wished to become involved with. I had confidence that the exec or council itself could come up with appropriate wording to satisfy the need. The chairman assured me on several occasions that this was the case. However, nothing appeared on the October meeting agenda and a mix up ensured nothing appeared for the January meeting either. When the exec proposals were made available it was immediately obvious that there was little understanding of the problems involved. The Legal Officer immediately made this very clear in a number of detailed reports but by this time the timetable for proposals was already running late.
As a result, on the 25th January, I put forward my own modest solution to this problem by submitting two simple motions to the June 2017 BCA AGM. (I later sent in a third clarifying motion).
I have looked into the origin of the first sentence of section 4.6 of the BCA constitution. It has been impossible to discover the exact reason it is there, other than the fact it was transferred across from the constitution of the NCA. I?m sure the spirit of that sentence is clear though ? that cavers should respect the law and be courteous to tenants and landowners. Left alone I?m sure it could have sat quite harmlessly in the constitution as a reminder of that spirit.
Unfortunately this expensive and time consuming reform has been forced on the BCA for the wrong reasons by the minority who are unwilling to accept the democratic vote of the membership on a CRoW campaign. It should be made clear to the landowning community that this change shows no disrespect to them. It merely deals with an issue that must now be dealt with, correcting an inaccuracy and most importantly allowing the BCA to pursue policy which it has a mandate to follow.
We do not need to be reminded in our constitution that we must obey the law. We should respect landowners? rights, but then, must we respect the rights of quarry owners and other businessmen who may wish to damage caves? They are within their rights to apply for planning permission to destroy or develop caves in ways which BCA may wish to oppose. Does our constitution allow us to fight and oppose that? What about our Human Rights or the rights we all hold to challenge the decision of a public authority by Judicial Review. Should that not be in our constitution? We should respect the speed limit, parking by-laws, decency laws, laws on drinking, drugs, public behaviour, and the environment, etc, etc. Are we to include these in our constitution too? No, of course not, let?s just remove the troublesome sentence and move forward.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Where are we at now? This year I have attended some meetings, notably with Natural Resources Wales at the request of Cambrian CC. My parliamentary contacts have kept in touch and I have monitored Government changes since the Brexit vote and latest election. I have avoided doing any media and concentrated on conservation and landowner relations where that is possible.
Essentially little has changed since last year. The situation is that the CRoW Act may cover caving, it may not and it has been impossible to clarify this one way or the other. On the one hand DEFRA, together with NE and NRW, state that in their view it does not apply. They make it clear that this is only their VIEW and their VIEW is not definitive. They say that in the end only a court can decide. They also state that they have sought no Barrister?s opinion to arrive at this view. On the other hand Dinah Rose QC offered her opinion that CRoW did apply to caving. The BCA Legal Officer has presented a strong case to show that this was parliament?s intent when introducing the Bill. In addition a number of other outdoor organisations have supported BCA?s campaign, for example; The Sports & Recreation Alliance, Outdoor Industries Association, British Mountaineering Council, British Canoeing, British Orienteering, Land Access & Recreation Association, Campaign for National Parks, together with individuals such as The Rt Hon David Davis MP, David Rutley MP, Chairman of Mountaineering All Party Parliamentary group and Lord Chris Smith, Chairman of the Environment Agency 2008-2014. We have a strong and well supported case.
The reality is that any caver can claim a right of access to caves on access land. The tone from government agencies is that they are not going to challenge cavers or settle the matter in court. A landowner who wishes to clarify trespass or a citizen challenging for access under Judicial Review will be in for an uncertain outcome and significant costs. Consequently there is almost nothing to stop cavers accessing most caves on CRoW land and that is a fact.
So where do BCA go next? To continue a campaign to have caving more widely recognised as coming under the CRoW Act is one thing, but it does look like that boat is already sailing. BCA have procrastinated for ten years or more on this issue and have been behind the moves of ordinary cavers at every step. Now, whilst we have spent the last year mulling over a single sentence of the constitution the subtle tones of CRoW have moved on again.
As always, I look forward to receiving Council?s direction.
Tim Allen
BCA CRoW Liaison Officer
Apologies in advance for both the length of this report and the criticism it poses at times. I applaud the voluntary efforts of many council members of BCA especially the chairman who works very hard on our behalf.
The BCA campaign to confirm existing rights of access under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 has not been as effective this year as last. The BCA has allowed the campaign to become bogged down in internal politics centred on a single sentence of the constitution. Complaints from the Council of Southern Caving Clubs (made to the April 2016 council meeting) that the campaign was unconstitutional highlighted the sentence, ?That the owners and tenants of property containing caves have the right to grant or withhold access?. This, it was claimed, prevented the BCA from campaigning for CRoW to apply to caving. This is refuted by many and does not take into account the fact that the Land Reform Act (Scotland) had already taken that right away north of the border and the CRoW Act may well have already taken it away to the south. This had already been dealt with by BCA Council on several occasions when the following statement had been agreed,
?BCA Council is fully aware of the Guiding Principles as outlined in sections 4.2 - 4.8 of the constitution and always seeks to act in line with these. However, the law of the land takes precedent over a constitution. Therefore, Council is happy that sections 4.4 - 4.8 are no impediment to BCA campaigning to change DEFRA?s current interpretation of the law, which by their own admission is not definitive.?
However, at last year?s AGM a new, amended motion was passed. This stated,
?To remit the issue of section 4.6 of the constitution to Council for consideration to return with a properly worded proposal presented at the next General Meeting. Meanwhile BCA will concentrate on conservation and landowner relations.?
The inclusion of the latter sentence of this motion showed a very substantive change and consequence from the original motion that had been properly tabled to the AGM. It effectively limited the campaign which was in progress at the time. Representatives of BCA groups and clubs attending the meeting could not have consulted their members on this major change and therefore it should never have been allowed. Following the AGM I received instructions from the Exec on how to proceed. These were somewhat ambiguous but never the less made it clear that I was to ?play it down? until after the next AGM, avoid being proactive in the media and concentrate on conservation and access issues. This I have done.
I have assisted the C&A officer wherever possible and I appreciated the vote of thanks from the January council meeting for the ?incredible amount of work getting the conservation message out.? I have also had a number of dealings with some major caving landowners mostly in the north of England. Some welcome all cavers, some are ambivalent and some would prefer a managed access system. However, even those, have stated that if the CRoW Act applies to caving then they are content to abide by the law of the land. There was never any talk of recriminations against cavers for pursuing access under CRoW.
It is difficult to see what more I can do to ?concentrate.... on landowner relations?. BCA itself is unable to approach landowners directly unless permitted through the regional councils. I note with dismay the comment in the minutes of the AGM which states, ?We would not wish to support anything that gives Tim Allen the chance to talk directly to landowners.? What is the motivation here when clearly I have spoken to many landowners without upsetting them? It is perhaps obvious that a landowner?s opinion is formed, in part, by the information he receives from his local caving contacts. These opinions may reflect the attitudes of those cavers and it is limited in the effect that BCA can have on this. I have asked the question below to the CSCC representative to Council at several meetings,
?I am unable to do much to improve landowner relations in the regions due to BCA restraints, especially on Mendip where many of the problems with CRoW has been reported. Could CSCC report on what progress they have made in allaying the landowner fears they were so concerned about??
The reply essentially stated that the CSCC had done nothing to allay reported fears as they were content with the status quo. There seems little BCA can do to improve this situation if the regional council have no wish to progress matters. However, on the subject of landowner relations BCA Council made the following statement.
?BCA Council has the utmost respect for landowners and recognises their right to decide how their land is used within the constraints of the law. It is now more than 15 years since the CRoW Act was introduced. At the time all sorts of potential concerns were raised by opponents of the legislation, but Council believes these have largely failed to materialise. Indeed in general landowners now seem content with the legislation and Council does not see this changing if caving is shown to also be included as a permitted activity. Furthermore CRoW legislation reduces landowners? potential liability to the lowest level possible in law and, as such, Council believes the majority of landowners will benefit if the CRoW Act is understood to apply to caves.?
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Reported in October, I had written a report to the exec intended to answer the question of whether the BCA has fulfilled any obligation it has in connection with the later part of point number two of the BCA poll on CRoW, namely, ?To consult with landowners and open communication with the Country Land and Business Association.? This concluded that the CLBA had made its position clear on numerous occasions and dialogue was unlikely to be effective. However, since then the implications of Brexit are becoming more apparent to farmers and land managers who may well loose out from cuts to moorland subsidies. Establishing the recreational value of these areas is becoming of more interest where previous unlikely partnerships may now seem attractive. I shall be looking at these.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Also at the October Council meeting I made statements to the meeting which were not reported in the minutes. The first part of the statement reminded Council of the historical support there had been for wider public access to caves from national caving bodies. The first goes back to 1949, the time of the National Park and Access to the Countryside Act (NPAC). Here the Cave Research Group are calling on individual cavers to lobby their MPs for greater access to caves. They state,
?Although we are interested in being able to walk across the country-side to the entrances of caves, our prime objective is to be able to gain access freely to the caves?.
In 1976 the National Caving Association and the BMC working with the Central Council for Physical Recreation instigated a statement on access which clearly backed public access for both outdoor recreations and highlighted how voluntary agreements weren?t working as intended by NPAC.
1n 1998 the NCA made a detailed response to the consultation paper on the CRoW Act. Despite what others have said since it is clear from the actual submission that the NCA supported the inclusion of caves and caving in the Act.
When the CRoW Act was introduced, Michael Meacher, Minister for the Environment, stated in the House of Commons that the Bill, ?finally achieves the aims and aspirations of the great post-war Labour legislation the National Park and Access to the Countryside Act, fulfilling the yearnings of the British people?for full rights of access to the beauties of the countryside?.and finally bringing to reality the dream of Lloyd George that nobody should be a trespasser in the land of their birth.? He went on to remind the house that, ?the decision to legislate has been supported by very substantial majorities in the responses to extensive consultations and opinion polls.?
The public majority was reflected in BCAs own poll of December 2014 when members gave a clear mandate for BCA to campaign for cave access under CRoW. BCA Council has very much supported that position but a minority has worked tirelessly to undermine it.
The second part of my statement reported on the level of unpleasant personal abuse I was receiving on social media because of my BCA role. This extended to attacks on friends who came to my aid and reached a level no decent person should tolerate. The name-calling appears to come from a small group of individuals who are vehemently opposed to CRoW. It is a classic tactic, if you cannot win the argument attack the person making the argument. BCA should not be fooled by it. These are attempts to cast doubt on my integrity and to undermine my position.
More recently, ahead of this AGM, rumours are being spread questioning the validity of my BCA role. Apparently I am an impostor in the role and BCA have until recently colluded in this deception. I have asked the exec to make a statement to squash these rumours but to date their response has been totally unsatisfactory especially as comments by the exec seem to have been a contributory factor. I seem to be left to defend myself.
For the record, the position of CRoW Liaison Officer was appointed at the June 2015 Council meeting. Due process was followed in line with the BCA constitution as reflected in the minutes of that meeting. I have since carried out those duties as mandated by the BCA Council. All my efforts and reports have been accepted by Council, and we have even had a specific unanimous vote which supported the work I was doing.
Some members have suggested my efforts as CRoW Liaison Officer are not as well supported as they should be or that I am ?hung out to dry? by elements within BCA. It appears to me that the name-calling minority do receive undeserved attention and are pandered to with private meetings, personal communications, etc, whilst the silent majority are largely ignored. This is a problem for BCA?s credibility within its wider membership.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
The proposed constitutional amendments to section 4.6 is not something that I wished to become involved with. I had confidence that the exec or council itself could come up with appropriate wording to satisfy the need. The chairman assured me on several occasions that this was the case. However, nothing appeared on the October meeting agenda and a mix up ensured nothing appeared for the January meeting either. When the exec proposals were made available it was immediately obvious that there was little understanding of the problems involved. The Legal Officer immediately made this very clear in a number of detailed reports but by this time the timetable for proposals was already running late.
As a result, on the 25th January, I put forward my own modest solution to this problem by submitting two simple motions to the June 2017 BCA AGM. (I later sent in a third clarifying motion).
I have looked into the origin of the first sentence of section 4.6 of the BCA constitution. It has been impossible to discover the exact reason it is there, other than the fact it was transferred across from the constitution of the NCA. I?m sure the spirit of that sentence is clear though ? that cavers should respect the law and be courteous to tenants and landowners. Left alone I?m sure it could have sat quite harmlessly in the constitution as a reminder of that spirit.
Unfortunately this expensive and time consuming reform has been forced on the BCA for the wrong reasons by the minority who are unwilling to accept the democratic vote of the membership on a CRoW campaign. It should be made clear to the landowning community that this change shows no disrespect to them. It merely deals with an issue that must now be dealt with, correcting an inaccuracy and most importantly allowing the BCA to pursue policy which it has a mandate to follow.
We do not need to be reminded in our constitution that we must obey the law. We should respect landowners? rights, but then, must we respect the rights of quarry owners and other businessmen who may wish to damage caves? They are within their rights to apply for planning permission to destroy or develop caves in ways which BCA may wish to oppose. Does our constitution allow us to fight and oppose that? What about our Human Rights or the rights we all hold to challenge the decision of a public authority by Judicial Review. Should that not be in our constitution? We should respect the speed limit, parking by-laws, decency laws, laws on drinking, drugs, public behaviour, and the environment, etc, etc. Are we to include these in our constitution too? No, of course not, let?s just remove the troublesome sentence and move forward.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Where are we at now? This year I have attended some meetings, notably with Natural Resources Wales at the request of Cambrian CC. My parliamentary contacts have kept in touch and I have monitored Government changes since the Brexit vote and latest election. I have avoided doing any media and concentrated on conservation and landowner relations where that is possible.
Essentially little has changed since last year. The situation is that the CRoW Act may cover caving, it may not and it has been impossible to clarify this one way or the other. On the one hand DEFRA, together with NE and NRW, state that in their view it does not apply. They make it clear that this is only their VIEW and their VIEW is not definitive. They say that in the end only a court can decide. They also state that they have sought no Barrister?s opinion to arrive at this view. On the other hand Dinah Rose QC offered her opinion that CRoW did apply to caving. The BCA Legal Officer has presented a strong case to show that this was parliament?s intent when introducing the Bill. In addition a number of other outdoor organisations have supported BCA?s campaign, for example; The Sports & Recreation Alliance, Outdoor Industries Association, British Mountaineering Council, British Canoeing, British Orienteering, Land Access & Recreation Association, Campaign for National Parks, together with individuals such as The Rt Hon David Davis MP, David Rutley MP, Chairman of Mountaineering All Party Parliamentary group and Lord Chris Smith, Chairman of the Environment Agency 2008-2014. We have a strong and well supported case.
The reality is that any caver can claim a right of access to caves on access land. The tone from government agencies is that they are not going to challenge cavers or settle the matter in court. A landowner who wishes to clarify trespass or a citizen challenging for access under Judicial Review will be in for an uncertain outcome and significant costs. Consequently there is almost nothing to stop cavers accessing most caves on CRoW land and that is a fact.
So where do BCA go next? To continue a campaign to have caving more widely recognised as coming under the CRoW Act is one thing, but it does look like that boat is already sailing. BCA have procrastinated for ten years or more on this issue and have been behind the moves of ordinary cavers at every step. Now, whilst we have spent the last year mulling over a single sentence of the constitution the subtle tones of CRoW have moved on again.
As always, I look forward to receiving Council?s direction.
Tim Allen
BCA CRoW Liaison Officer
.
