TWO weeks to go - reminder to send your objections to the proposed Chapel Gate TRO in the Peak District: The Peak District National Park is seeking a permanent TRO on Chapel Gate and inviting objections. Chapel Gate is currently the best driveable route in the Peak District. We need to muster as many objections as possible. On previous consultations for the Roych and Long Causeway we managed over 4000 objections. We are aiming to have over 6000 objections for Chapel Gate. Please circulate and forward this to as many clubs, forums and users as possible all across the UK , with a request to ensure objections are submitted through the link here: http://consult.peakdistrict.gov.uk/detChapel Gate (0)ails.cfm?TROID=6 or by post to: Rights of Way Team Aldern House Baslow Road Bakewell Derbyshire DE45 1AE BEFORE the 28th of June. The link above will give all the information needed from the Peak Park s website. The objections do not need to be long or technical but your objection will carry more weight if you give good reasons. Please make sure you mark your correspondence as an objection. Asking questions of the National Park in your objection is a good tactic to increase their workload. To help, there are several points below, which you may wish to incorporate into any objection: The Peak District National Park Authority (PDNPA) is acting in a discriminatory fashion by singling out recreational vehicle users in this way. The PDNPA is openly prejudiced and biased against vehicle users, with Members of the Authority taking public positions and being members of pressure groups opposed to recreational drivers and riders. The recommendations of the Local Access Forum (LAF), which is a legal body formed to advise the PDNPA on matters around Rights of Way was ignored in proposing this Permanent TRO. The LAF had recommended a limited TRO. The Rights of Way Officers conducted a flawed survey as part of an unlawful Experimental TRO, yet they still used its biased and discriminatory findings to seek the approval of the PDNPA to proceed to a Permanent TRO. Much of the Authoritys concern is for the ecology of the area, which is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) but they will not concede that the area is also Open Access and therefore subject to walkers leaving the route to wander freely across the landscape. The Authority claims to be concerned about damage to the lane and other users being forced from the route by vehicles or the expectation of meeting vehicles and so creating parallel tracks. However, they are not concerned when walkers, cyclists and horse riders damage bridleways and create parallel tracks on other routes. In this way the PDNPA operates double standards. The PDNPA is utterly unconcerned that they are removing a legal right to use Chapel Gate for a small minority of users. The Authority is happy to suggest that vehicle users can use the surfaced road network as an alternative but refuses to suggest that walkers, cyclists and horse riders could use alternative footpaths and bridleways to avoid the Chapel Gate BOAT. PLEASE object however briefly and please ensure that you submit the objection BEFORE 28 June. Your effort will count. Nigel Bennett Peak and Derbyshire Vehicle User Group (PDVUG)
Emailed mine a couple of weeks ago. If you're a TRF member, don't mention the TRF, just write send in your objection as a concerned member of the public who objects to loosing vehicular rights in the Peak District. If you mention you're in the TRF, all such objections stand the chance of being lumped together and counted as one objection. If anyone wants to see my objection, PM me your email address but remember to re-word it.
Link copied to http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hubb/europe/chapelgate-derbyshire-70812#post425944 Possu: pls forward me your email. My address can be found in my website, link in sig, under "Other". Ta
My submission. Feel free to copy, circulate amend, then submit I note with concern that, notwithstanding its recent expensive defeat in the High Court, the PDNPA has decided to persevere with its attempts to close Chapel Gate to motors, and I wish to register my objections to this policy in the strongest possible terms. I would also like to ask how large a budget the PDNPA has set aside for its plans to curtail recreational motoring in the Peak District, and how much of this has already been spent? Please answer this and my other questions in accordance with the FoI Act. I turn now to the reasons for my objections to the latest proposed TRO. These are as follow: 1) Members of the Authority appear to be following the agenda of other groups of which they are members, rather than managing the National Park for the benefit of all users. 2) The Authority claims to be concerned about damage to the lane and other users being forced from the route by vehicles or the expectation of meeting vehicles and so creating parallel tracks. However, they are not concerned when walkers, cyclists and horse riders damage bridleways and create parallel tracks on other routes. In this way the PDNPA appears to operate double standards against undesirable motorised users, ignoring the economic and social contributions that they bring to the area. 3) It would appear from the PDNPAs own documents that a justification for the TRO is the (unevidenced) assertion that walkers are straying from Chapel Gate onto the surrounding land because they fear encountering vehicles that are using the route. The land surrounding Chapel Gate is open right to roam land. The PDNPA encourages people to walk on right to roam land in other locations, so it is hard to discern why it wishes to discourage this here. 4) Various arguments are put forward concerning erosion and damage to Chapel Gate as a justification for its closure. Why are these arguments not put forward as a justification for the closure of various paths and bridleways which have also been eroded and damaged over the years? The ruination by walkers and the subsequent repair of Kinder Scout (using material flown-in by helicopter!), the surface of which now resembles that of an urban pedestrian shopping precinct, being a case in point. It is interesting to note that the mindset of the PDNPA appears to be that vehicular routes are damaged by motor vehicles, while non-vehicular routes are eroded by nature. Do the PDNPA not understand that the passage of pedestrians, equestrians and cyclists will also cause wear and tear? 5) The PDNPA appears utterly unconcerned that it is removing a legal right to use Chapel Gate for a small minority of users. The Authority is happy to suggest that vehicle users can use the surfaced road network as an alternative but refuses to suggest that walkers, cyclists and horse riders could use alternative footpaths and bridleways to avoid the Chapel Gate BOAT. 6) The anti-motoring agenda appears to be driven by a few well-placed individuals who have retired to the National Park, with comfortable lifestyles funded by the public purse. They have the time and money to devote to keeping ordinary people off their patch, and their ultimate aim is to turn the National Park into a quiet retirement home for the undeserving rich. Does this not make an uncomfortable parallel with the situation in the Derbyshire Peaks in the 1920 and 1930s, where those with a desire to preserve the Peaks for field sports did their utmost to keep other users out? It would seem that pursuit of the nebulous quality of tranquility has replaced the shooting of grouse, but otherwise aims and objectives remain pretty much the same. I hope that the relevant persons within the PDNPA will be able to answer my questions, and that my objections will be heeded. Sadly, I suspect that the vested interests driving the TROs within the Park have already ensured that objections such as mine will be noted and then ignored, as the PDNPA will dance to their tune.
At 5:00pm the Current Consultations page says "1) Consultation on Proposed Traffic Regulation Order at Chapel Gate We are seeking views on whether motor vehicles should be prevented from using Chapel Gate, a 3km route which skirts Rushup Edge near Chapel en le Frith. Our proposal is to make a Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) to permanently prohibit motor vehicles from this route. The six-week consultation ran from 16 May 2013 to 28 June 2013. We are aware that on the final day of the Chapel Gate consultation some people may have experienced difficulties in making a representation. As a result of this, the consultation will remain open until Thursday 4 July 2013 for those that wished to make a representation. Apologies for any inconvenience that may have resulted. Further information can be found at consult.peakdistrict.gov.uk" Get in there! Only 1600 objections so far . Come on, people show some fight!
