Until a couple of weeks ago, Chertpit Lane was just another Derbyshire footpath and bridleway – a couple of miles of rough walking through the spectacular landscape of the Peak District National Park. Now it has come to symbolise a cause, as the scene of the first battle in the war to save the national park from the ravages of "off-road" motorcycles and 4x4s.Off-road motoring is literally wearing parts of the Peak District away. Yet it is being increasingly accommodated by authorities who have a duty to preserve the landscape of a national park which attracts almost 20 million visitors each year – virtually every one of them looking for clean air, clear skies and healthy exercise; not petrol fumes, the noise of revving engines and rutted roads.
Peter Wood, a farmer in the Peak Park like his father before him, grieves over "ancient trails completely wrecked" by "men with no feeling for the countryside". He might complain about the way in which damaged roads add to the problems of rearing sheep and cattle on the high ground of Longstone Moor. But his real concern is the future of the Peak. Although he is a down-to-earth man, each item in the inventory of destruction clearly causes him pain. Black Harry Lane was once "full of flowers in the summer and green all the year round". Now the top soil is stripped away, leaving nothing but a rubble road which is impassable for horses and a struggle for hikers to climb.
As a boy, Wood used to be taken on nature walks down Chertpit Lane. He expects it to go the same way as Black Harry Lane. For years, Chertpit Lane was a restricted byway from which motor traffic was excluded. A month ago, thanks to a decision of Derbyshire County Council, it was opened to all traffic. The process which legalised motor vehicles scrambling along what was once a "green road" combined tragedy and farce.
Legislation that was intended to protect the rural environment was implemented in a way which encouraged off-road drivers to extend their activities and claim that the harm they do had been legitimised. The 2006 Natural Environment Act extinguished the right of motor vehicles to use every footpath which had ever been open to any sort of wheeled transport in England and Wales. But, during the "consultation period", the government agreed that applications could be made up until January 2005 for some to be kept open to off-roaders.
So the garage door was locked after the motorcycles and the 4x4s had bolted. Hundreds of applications beat the deadline. One was in the name of Geoffrey Henton, a resident of Whitwell, 50 miles from the Peak Park. Asked why he chose to make that particular claim, he replied with admirable frankness: "We all decided to put one in." The "we" were members of The Trail Riders' Fellowship who, in the words of one council official, "adopted the scatter gun approach" in their attempt to make rural Derbyshire reverberate to the sound of motorcycles. Together with other "off-road" organisations, they have proved remarkably successful. In all, 231 claims have been made in Derbyshire alone. Seventy-six have a real chance of succeeding.
Other counties face similar invasions. Not all of them see them as a danger. Hampshire has 180 applications to open green roads to traffic – described by a council official as "the exercise of legal rights". They are being processed at the rate of six to eight a year. That explains why – five years after the act was passed – rural England is starting to fight back.
The desecration of the first few green roads was meekly accepted. But as the numbers have grown, year by year, the extent of the devastation has become intolerable. It is worst in the hilly national parks – Exmoor, the Lake District, Northumberland, North York Moors and the Peak. And it is likely to become even worse as off-road organisations grow more confident that their claims will be upheld. The Chertpit Lane decision is an unhappy precedent.
Like every local authority, Derbyshire is short of money. Yet it employed staff to prove that Chertpit Lane should be open to motor traffic because "on the balance of probability" it was once used by horse-drawn vehicles. The evidence, accepted by a public inquiry, included information from the Enclosure Plan of 1824, Greenwood's 1825 Map of Derbyshire and the Tithe Plan of 1847. The final judgment might have been invented as a satire on the law's absurdity. It amounted to a glorious non sequitur. Almost 200 years ago, hay carts passed down Chertpit Lane. So it must now be opened up to Land Rovers and Harley-Davidsons. Amenity, ecology, convenience and safety were ignored – despite the council's 2005 conclusion that the track was "too narrow for four-wheel vehicles".
The Peak Park Planning Authority's stated aim is to "balance" the demands of off-roaders with those of hikers and horse-riders – an objective which makes up in piety what it lacks in reality. Their interests cannot be reconciled. Legal or not, off-road motoring tears the countryside apart. If, as the authority's strategy document claims, "the aim is to ensure that the national park will not be damaged for future generations", its obligation is not to "manage the routes" which the off-roaders use, but to do all in its power to minimise their presence within its boundaries. Off-roaders destroy every green road on which they drive.
High on Longstone Edge, the distant view is of green hills and greener valleys stretching for mile after mile towards the horizon. The immediate prospect is grassland scarred with tyre tracks and pathways with potholes a foot deep.
In defence of opening more green roads to traffic, the Peak Park Authority stresses the importance of distinguishing between users who "flagrantly disregard the law", and men and women who pursue a legitimate claim to enjoy the tranquil countryside in super-charged Land Rovers. Its officials claim that "the illegal use of the most damaged sites has decreased" – hardly surprising if more and more green roads are open for legal, though equally destructive, off-roading. Derbyshire police welcome co-operative efforts to "reduce the impact of irresponsible off-roading for local residents".
Few Peak residents have noticed the improvement and evidence contradicts the optimistic generalities. A fortnight ago, just after the fightback started, South Yorkshire police confiscated a couple of motorcycles on the Sheffield approaches to the Park. But that is only nibbling at the edges of the problem. Every weekend prohibition signs are destroyed and walls are pulled down by the brutish fringe who follow the organised groups which advertise their respectability.
Half a mile away from Black Harry Lane, the Great Double Dyke – English Heritage Scheduled Monument 31229 – bears witness to the havoc wreaked by the tearaways. Two parallel ditches have marked the boundary between Ashford and Hope land since local families bought it from the Danes in AD926. But they have barely withstood the ravages of the motorcycles and Land Rovers which have driven down and across them.
Giant stones now block the entrance to the dykes from motorcyclists who want to use them as race tracks. The sign announcing their historical importance is brand new. It was replaced after enraged off-roaders pulled it down.
Last Saturday morning, the Grindleford Gallop – a charity event organised by local schools – came down Chertpit Lane. Six hundred walkers and runners made their way south. Four motorcyclists rode north against the tide. It is not hard to imagine what would have happened on a road, in parts only 2m wide, if the news had got abroad that it was open to every vehicle that wanted to race.
It is fear for the future, as well as love of the landscape, that has made the tranquil majority fight back. Led by John Poulter, a retired tax inspector who is therefore immune from charges of intemperance or irresponsibility, the quiet people are monitoring off-road behaviour in 13 Peak District parishes. Council and Peak Park decisions are being examined for evidence of error or maladministration. There will not be a parish meeting or residents' forum in the whole area that does not have "the dangers of off-roading" on its agenda.
Last Wednesday a gathering covering five villages lambasted the council for not identifying protected roads and the police for failing to prosecute when protected roads are violated. The campaigners are people who rarely demonstrate and never rebel but care. That is why it is likely to succeed.
Roy Hattersley© : Published in the Observer 21-3-10
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