CRoW Liaison Officer Report to BCA AGM ? June 2016.
It has been a busy year for me since I took up the role of CRoW liaison last June. Campaigning to confirm the legal access that the CRoW Act offers is an emotive issue within British Caving and it has taken up much time and discussion in BCA Council meetings and beyond.
The basis of the campaign has been to seek clarification, to gather wide support and to lobby the authorities. I have reported all my work in detail to BCA council meetings and this is available with the meeting minutes. My reports have also appeared in full on UKcaving and summarised in the BCA newsletter so that the membership can see exactly what is being done in their name.
In addition to the main campaign there are already some fringe benefits for the future. There is a new invigorated emphasis on cave conservation both from the BCA and other groups and it should be no surprise that conservation has developed alongside the campaign for open access. The campaign has encouraged new contact with all levels of authorities, landowners and other outdoor organisations which has generally been very positive and demonstrated a willingness to look outwardly from our own organisation.
I have spoken with a number of landowners and landowner representatives mainly in the north of England, some of whom control access to over 100km of caves on their land. Most have been accepting of any potential change to cave access and none have suggested any recriminations. However in contrast, and on Mendip in particular, I am told that the BCA campaign is likely to cause untold problems with local landowners, so this is a very difficult circle to square across the north/south divide. I hope that through BCA?s continuing discussions we can find a solution which is acceptable to all interests.
Across the country some landowners already allow open access including on SSSIs, others require systems of control and a few permit no official access at all. The present situation relies on hundreds of voluntary access arrangements which can be subject to regular renegotiation as the situation and land ownership changes and are quite a burden on our Access Controlling Bodies and Regional Caving Councils. A legal right will guarantee future access to at least some of our caves and relieve some of the effort required to maintain agreements. That effort could then be channelled into other areas such as conservation.
I have also looked at how the BCA Public Liability Insurance impacts the majority of our access agreements. In nearly all cases access agreements are reliant on the landowner indemnity cover it provides. Should this become too expensive or unavailable to us then we could lose access to hundreds of our popular caves. Under CRoW, even if we lost insurance cover, we could still enjoy the access freedoms to those caves provided for by the Act ? food for thought.
There are many indications that active caving is on the decline, and has been for a decade or more. There is a view that unnecessary access restrictions send out an unwelcome message and this contributes to the decline. Whilst fewer cavers may well be good for conservation in the short term, it is not good for the long term health of British Caving. Many of our councils, committees, conservationist groups, etc ? the people who make British Caving happen rely too heavily on an aging population of retiring cavers. At some point numbers become critical and we need to work hard to make caving more attractive to the new generations of British Cavers.
I am confident that the correct path for British Caving is to seek a legal right of access to caves where that is possible. Other outdoor organisations such as ramblers, climbers and paddlers have all determined to follow this route with some notable successes. The freedoms we enjoy in the countryside today would not have happened without groups campaigning for those rights against strong oppositions as the Kinder Scout trespass demonstrated all those years ago. The improvements to access that cavers enjoy today can be directly attributed to the atmosphere created by other campaigns and the principles, such as the Right to Roam, that enshrine them in law.
The BCA poll showed that the majority of its members want CRoW rights to apply to them too. The 63% who voted in favour of a campaign is a majority that the Scottish and European referendums would die for. Many in BCA who voted against in the poll support the democratic nature of the organisation and accept the result. Unfortunately others do not and a vocal minority continue to campaign against CRoW with some vigour as evidenced by their relationships, in letters, PMQs and the media, all designed to undermine the BCA majority position.
None of this reflects well on British Caving. The law is unclear, as caving is not excluded under the CRoW Act and whilst there are differing opinions of the interpretation of the law this position is likely to persist. It may be that, as DEFRA have stated, in the end only a court can decide. Should this route be something that the BCA consider? It would settle the matter once and for all and prevent, in the meantime, other cavers taking matters into their own hands, especially in the midst of acrimonious access disputes.
Whatever the eventual outcome we would get to where we are going in much better shape if we pulled together rather than working against the majority view of the membership.
Tim Allen
21st May 2016