David Rose
Active member
I'm pleased to be able to report some encouraging news on the long-running saga of attempts to improve the law that governs cave access.
As already noted in this thread, the All Party Party Parliamentary Group on Outdoor Recreation and Access to Nature recently published a report entitled Outdoors for All, which included a recommendation that the Countryside and Rights of Way (CROW) Act 2000 should be amended so that caving came within its scope, thus removing restrictions to cave access on land designated as open mountain and moorland. The BCA has been campaigning for this for more than a decade, and as regular forum readers will know, supported an unsuccessful judicial review of officialdom's current position that ended in 2021. Along with the CNCC, it gave written evidence to the APPG ahead of the report.
That official position, in case readers don't know, is absurd. According to the relevant governmental bodies, Defra, Natural England, the Welsh Government and Natural Resources Wales, cavers have a right to visit entrances on designated CROW open access land, but not to venture into them beyond the limits of daylight. Yet caving is not in the Act's schedule of excluded activities, and there is no evidence that Parliament had this intention when the Act was debated.
Before the APPG report was published, I met with its chair, the Rossendale and Darwen Labour MP Andy MacNae, and his policy aide Owen Riley, at Westminster. It was a great meeting. Andy is a former deputy chief executive of the BMC and an active climber, with some notable greater ranges first ascents under his belt. He totally gets the point that the current interpretation of the Act needs to change. Some posters here have quibbled about the report's wording, suggesting the APPG has somehow strengthened the official position. Well, I don't read it that way, and having stayed in contact with Andy and Owen, I can assure you they do not support the status quo at all.
On 21 August, Andy wrote to the relevant Defra minister, Baroness Hayman. His letter is attached here, and you will see it amounts to valuable support for the BCA/CNCC arguments. It reviews the recent Dartmoor camping case, and suggests this lends further strength to them.
The Baroness replied (also attached) on 2 October. It's a very disappointing letter, that merely restates what government has been saying ever since Badlad of this parish first began to raise the issue more than a decade ago. On the other hand, it comes as no surprise. Most, indeed, almost all, letters signed by ministers are drafted by civil servants. If there isn’t a specific political mandate to change the status quo, they will almost invariably restate the official departmental position, and the minister, who will have many decisions to make on policy areas even more important than cave access, will simply sign them. So the Baroness will likely have paid little attention to this. It will have been in her in-tray of things to sign and this she will duly have done. She may well not have read it, let alone have thought about the Dartmoor case.
The good news is that Andy remains keen to keep up the pressure, and wants to engage with the caving community as to the best way to do this. We have a significant ally.
As already noted in this thread, the All Party Party Parliamentary Group on Outdoor Recreation and Access to Nature recently published a report entitled Outdoors for All, which included a recommendation that the Countryside and Rights of Way (CROW) Act 2000 should be amended so that caving came within its scope, thus removing restrictions to cave access on land designated as open mountain and moorland. The BCA has been campaigning for this for more than a decade, and as regular forum readers will know, supported an unsuccessful judicial review of officialdom's current position that ended in 2021. Along with the CNCC, it gave written evidence to the APPG ahead of the report.
That official position, in case readers don't know, is absurd. According to the relevant governmental bodies, Defra, Natural England, the Welsh Government and Natural Resources Wales, cavers have a right to visit entrances on designated CROW open access land, but not to venture into them beyond the limits of daylight. Yet caving is not in the Act's schedule of excluded activities, and there is no evidence that Parliament had this intention when the Act was debated.
Before the APPG report was published, I met with its chair, the Rossendale and Darwen Labour MP Andy MacNae, and his policy aide Owen Riley, at Westminster. It was a great meeting. Andy is a former deputy chief executive of the BMC and an active climber, with some notable greater ranges first ascents under his belt. He totally gets the point that the current interpretation of the Act needs to change. Some posters here have quibbled about the report's wording, suggesting the APPG has somehow strengthened the official position. Well, I don't read it that way, and having stayed in contact with Andy and Owen, I can assure you they do not support the status quo at all.
On 21 August, Andy wrote to the relevant Defra minister, Baroness Hayman. His letter is attached here, and you will see it amounts to valuable support for the BCA/CNCC arguments. It reviews the recent Dartmoor camping case, and suggests this lends further strength to them.
The Baroness replied (also attached) on 2 October. It's a very disappointing letter, that merely restates what government has been saying ever since Badlad of this parish first began to raise the issue more than a decade ago. On the other hand, it comes as no surprise. Most, indeed, almost all, letters signed by ministers are drafted by civil servants. If there isn’t a specific political mandate to change the status quo, they will almost invariably restate the official departmental position, and the minister, who will have many decisions to make on policy areas even more important than cave access, will simply sign them. So the Baroness will likely have paid little attention to this. It will have been in her in-tray of things to sign and this she will duly have done. She may well not have read it, let alone have thought about the Dartmoor case.
The good news is that Andy remains keen to keep up the pressure, and wants to engage with the caving community as to the best way to do this. We have a significant ally.
