David Rose said:
What an amazing thread. We had a referendum. Its result made crystal clear what the majority of BCA members want. And now Mr Burgess suggests that by lobbying MPs, Tim - who has worked extremely hard on this issue - is in breach of the BCA constitution. Thank you Rhys for your very sensible contribution.
Those of us who support the extension of CROW to caving believe the law already recognises this, but has been misinterpreted. We are not at this stage campaigning to change it.
To think that at 3:35pm yesterday (4/11/15), under the concreting Drws Cefn thread, I innocently enquired:
Originally, open access land under the CROW Act allowed all sorts of activities, with various provisos, but, for some unknown reason, access for the purpose of caving wasn't included. Has this now been corrected?
I wholeheartedly agree with the comments in David's initial quotation and feel that Tim is doing an excellent job and may he be given the necessary support to see the work through to
a successful conclusion.
People are concerned about the BCA constitution (
http://british-caving.org.uk/wiki3/doku.php?id=about:documents:bca_constitution ) so I've taken a look at it and, from what he has outlined, Tim is acting quite constitutionally under Clause 3.3 of the AIMS section:
3.3. To act as a national spokesman and negotiating body on behalf of Members, when required by them to do so; to protect members' interests; and provide facilities, when required, to co-ordinate effort where interests overlap.
Under the GUIDING PRINCIPLES in section 4, the clause 4.6 to which some of those above appear to be appealing is:
4.6. That the owners and tenants of property containing caves have the right to grant or withhold access. Where caving bodies have control of access delegated to them by the owners, such access should be obtained and granted as freely as possible for all responsible cavers, within the terms of those agreements. When obliged to make new agreements, the appropriate body should endeavour to ensure that this freedom is maintained or improved.
The first sentence clearly applies where land does not fall under the open-access arrangements provided by the CROW Act. The second sentence allows for the fact that in certain instances landowners have delegated control of access to caving bodies, "where such access should be obtained and granted as freely as possible for all responsible cavers, within the terms of those agreements." There's also a third sentence which refers to new agreements that should ensure that this freedom is maintained or improved."
Well, if Tim is able to establish that the CROW Act already applies to caving, since caving has not yet been recognised by DEFRA and landowners under the CROW Act, this would constitute forming a new agreement between cavers and landowners,
according to the law of the land and incorporating any special landowners' requirements when cavers are crossing their land to enter caves. The landowners' special requirements are likely to be use of specific paths, not climbing over walls or fences, not damaging archaeological features or agricultural crops or man-made structures and leaving whatever guards might be in place at the cave entrance to help protect others (including animals) from accidentally falling into the cave.
