I must preface this response by first pointing out that the statements made in the pro CroW documentation only apply to caves which are on Access Land. I did not think I needed to spell out that these statements did not apply to caves which were not on Access Land. (Apologies to those who feel insulted because I spell out such a basic point.) So nothing changes to caves off Access Land, including responding in some cases to the demand by the land owner to provide insurance to cover any claim against the land owner by someone down a cave on their land.
re delicate and fragile caves are trashed - there is an adequate mechanism under Section 26 to protect such caves. I will provide details of how it works in due course but I am awaiting a response from one statutory body. But simply said if granted, then there need be no change in existing the access control system. Indeed one cave has already been identified as being caught by the CRoW restricted access system. It is also worth noting that from returns to date it looks as if there are likely to be well under 50 caves where such control may be justified, out of perhaps 3000 caves in all. So far only 4 have been clearly identified as potential candidates. And of those perhaps 3000 caves, around 2000 have access restrictions imposed on them which have nothing to do with conservation. (I have rounded the numbers for simplicity.)
re impact of an insurance claim - As the founding BCA Treasurer, I have always been conscious that BCA is likely to become a busted flush if there is a major claim since the chance of getting the policy renewed seemed to me to be vanishingly small. As those who were active at the time will recall; BCA came into effect because BCRA lost its cover when their insurance company just refused to renew it in September 2003. Access to many caves was lost up until the start of 2004 when BCA came into being with a new insurance policy. Getting CRoW applying underground will remove the need for insurance cover for land owners for those caves and thus reduce our dependence on needing insurance. Surely no bad thing?
There is also the point that I doubt if our insurance policy will cover situations where assuming CRoW applies to caving, an agreement is made between cavers and a land owner to apply voluntary restrictions and insurance cover for the land owner is claimed to be included in that voluntary agreement. The insurance company will reasonably reject any claim saying 'none existed in law because CRoW removed it so the voluntary agreement was therefore unnecessary'.
As an aside, Lamb Lear was not shut because of a need for insurance; access continued after the accident. My memory is that the farmer wanted an annual payment of a substantial sum of money which CSCC felt was too much to pay and would cause other land owners to say I also am going to charge similar.
I also should point out that BCA will only be paying for the letter going out with the ballot form. You will have to pay the postage for sending it back. Whilst BCA holds email addresses for roughly half of its membership, as I understood it, Council decided that they could not get a secure enough system for voting by the web on the time scales they wanted. And as BCA made a surplus last year of over ?7,000, it is not as if it can't afford to do it. Given there are in existence secure 'over the web' systems for voting, this should be achievable assuming that those doing it have the time to do so in place of the many other activities they do for caving. Another aside, it is worrying that BCA is still dependent upon relatively few people doing many of the tasks to keep it running.
However Bottlebank's suggested list of data (membership number, address & DOB) is insufficient for security purposes. Us old lags recall a postal poll back in 1993 which was subject to substantial fraudulent returns. It also needs a unique number communicated to only the member which they use when making their vote. And there is also the need to have adequate barriers against hacking the central data base.
The reason for two votes was because as I understood it, Council felt that to put them together would open them to claims that the proposal was constitutionally invalid. Yes I know it sounds preposterous but having been personally subject to some 'extreme' points (like a threat of legal action for conspiracy), I have sympathy with the position. So they decided on a poll to inform them and thus justify making a subsequent constitutional change, probably at the 2015 AGM.
And for Graham - you have previously stated that none of the caves which you have an involvement in are on Access Land. So you have no work to do. Perhaps your efforts might be better spent getting the SSSI status of Mendip caves to apply to caves; the current exemption for any caving activity means a caver can down those caves, trash them and suffer no penalty. Hardly a good conservation position for all those ungated caves on Mendip.
Lastly if you want more information and have not already done so, then go and read
http://tinyurl.com/pro-CRoW-caving-01 .
