Newsletter Issue 15 July 2018

In this issue: Jessica and Poppy ride for Alzheimer’s research Jacob’s Ladder When Jessica Green’s mum was diagnosed with consultation (p2) early onset Alzheimer’s Disease at only 55 years of age, Jessica wanted to do something about Rights of Way this devastating illness. research (p3) Her mum was a keen horse rider so Jessica decided that she would do a sponsored ride for her mum and make a donation to contribute to the work of Decision on Back Alzheimer’s Research UK. Lane (p4) Jessica and her horse, Poppy, rode the South Peak Loop in early May. Being local, she chose to do a part PHP round-up (p5) of the route each day with her ‘crew’ of supporters making she sure she and Poppy were driven to the start of each day’s section and met at the end to be taken home. Jessica said the ride was very enjoyable. She says: ‘I’m really glad I completed the ride and would definitely recommend the South Peak Loop to others. ‘ Jessica and Poppy with a young supporter Diary date: Jessica and Poppy have so far raised over £700. If you would like to support Jessica, and a very good cause, please go to https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/jessica-green14

September 16 Pleasure ride from Police warn 4x4 drivers! Tideswell Two 4x4s driving illegally over an SSSI on the edge of were spotted and photographed by a PHP member. The drivers have been given formal warnings under the 2002 Police Reform Act. Sections 59- 60 of the Act allow the police to seize and remove a vehicle which is causing alarm, distress or annoyance to a member of the public when the vehicle is being driven on a footpath, BW, restricted byway, common land or moorland. The first step is a formal police warning. If a driver is caught a second time committing the same offence the power to seize and remove the vehicle comes into play. Well done South Police. It would be good to see the Constabulary equally willing to use these powers. Petition for new law on injury to horses in road accidents...... Says the law needs to be changed to protect riders from drivers who leave the scene of an accident leaving behind them huge vet fees, dead horses and horses that can never be ridden again. The petition is at https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/217985 Two great rides to try.... One is a wonderfully scenic three-hour ride above Ladybower, round the Derwent Dams. It starts near the Fairholmes visitor centre, is easy riding and highly recommended. PHP committee members rode it as part of the BHS Ride Out UK month, which is all about raising awareness of off-road riding and and to publisise the work of BHS access volunteers. We also wanted to raise awareness of the British Mountaineering Council’s “Mend Our Mountains: make one million” project. Cut Gate bridleway, part of the Kinder Loop, is a challenging, high level ride from the top of the Derwent Valley to Langsett and is one of the projects in the BMCs campaign. Two PHP committee members took part in the video for BMC.

You can find out more about the Cut Gate project and make a PHP committee riders where the Derwent Dams circuit meets the start donation at https://mendmountains.thebmc.co.uk/ of the Cut Gate route

TRO consultation for Jacob’s Ladder - at last! DCC has finally consulted on a TRO to exclude off-road vehicles from Jacob’s Ladder, Stoney Middleton. Along with the Parish Council, Friends of the and the Peak District Green Lanes Alliance, PHP has been lobbying for a TRO on the route ever since it became a BOAT (Byway Open to All Traffic) in 2012. Consider needs of One of our first actions was to commission a safety survey of the route, which non-motorised users concluded that Jacob’s Ladder is dangerous for shared use between offroad Two officers from Highways vehicles and horses. The Parish Council has been asking for restrictions on (HE), who operate, vehicle use for over 20 years. We congratulate DCC on finally grasping the maintain and improve England’s nettle. The next step is for DCC to consider the outcome of the consultation motorways and major A roads, and decide whether to press on with making the TRO. recently gave a presentation to Jacob’s Ladder is steep, narrow, has blind bends and there is nowhere to get out the BHS rights of way committee. of the way of motor vehicles. Its surface has been wrecked. Once part of a lovely, safe off-road route between Stoney Middleton and , this is what the lane They work in a relatively new looks like today: department, responsible for considering the needs of non- motorised users on whom HE developments have an impact. They were keen to learn about the needs of equestrians on multi user routes. They also announced their ‘connecting communities’ fund. This is a designated fund for spending between 2020 and 2025. Interestingly, it can be used retrospectively on HE schemes that didn’t consider non- motorised users when they were originally developed. It covers things considered ‘public good’ such as the impact on communities, eg community severance as well as ‘impact on place’. The fund will also take into account the impact on different types of users eg users of BWs and promoted trails, riding schools, stables and farriers. Rights of way research The 2026 deadline for claiming new BWs based on historic evidence is fast approaching. PHP member and rights of way researcher, Flick Edmeston, has been forging ahead with a number of claims. In this article she explains what she has been up to.

Hmm... where to begin? I suppose it is at least twenty years ago that I first became interested in rights of way and did some preliminary fact finding but, although I never lost interest, it is only many years later that I have found that perfect blend of time and inclination which has enabled me to pursue this, well I would say hobby, but I’m afraid it’s become more of an obsession. I plunged headfirst into the murky waters of historical research nearly a year ago now and am proud to say that I have submitted four Definitive Map Modification Orders (DMMO’s to those of us in the know), in that time. Help and advice has been freely given by both Diana Mallinson Portion of an enclosure award map - best friend to a ROW researcher and Brian Smith and I must give credit to the DCC Legal Services Department, who have also been incredibly It is worth mentioning here the really friendly staff at the helpful when I didn’t expect it. Derbyshire Records Office who put up very patiently with my first, tentative efforts to trace railway records, turnpike My first DMMO to be accepted onto the register of trusts and historical ephemera which I thought may be claims was for an old bridleway leading from Alsop en le useful. Unfailingly polite and helpful, they made visits Dale up to what is now the A515, via the old station on occasions to be enjoyed when I felt very inexperienced the Tissington Trail. Although I was already interested in and could easily have been put off. this, I had most of the research handed to me on a plate A claim for the continuation of the bridleway known as and merely had to tidy it up, update it and then send it Gypsy Lane which runs from Alstonefield down Gypsy in. Great hopes for this one because it gives a useful link Bank and then turns into a footpath when it crosses the across from the High Peak to the Tissington Trail without River Dove and the Staffordshire/Derbyshire border has going along the A515, hazardous enough even in a car. also been accepted onto the register. The way down the The next order I submitted was for a lost and forgotten bank to the river can best be described as ‘challenging’, road from the A515 – yes, you’ve guessed it, these are all but I have not seen that as a reason not to put in a claim very local to me – across some farmland to the old main for the route – it makes a lovely link from one county road from Ashbourne to which is now merely to another and, if proven, it will definitely appeal to the known as Gag Lane. The (hopefully) conclusive evidence intrepid, or those with an intrepid horse. upon which I based this claim was a lost and forgotten I have added my two-penn’orth to the general confusion document from 1910 which I found at the bottom of a which is the question of the status of Gin Lane in box of Tissington Estates records held at the Derbyshire and must admit that I spent a month deciphering Records Office at Matlock. Some days turn out much a diversion document from 1784. Handwritten, faded better than others! legal documentation does pose some problems, but I got there in the end. I have had to buy a book on Elizabethan handwriting though in my efforts to transcribe a document from 1558 pertaining to Longway Bank at Ashover. After a couple of hours on this document, virtually all I had managed was “Philip and Mary”, “aforementioned”, “Watering Place”. “and” and “the” – not outstanding progress. At present I have moved research out of my own immediate patch and am actively researching routes in the Staffordshire Moorlands, Marston Montgomery, Breadsall, Denby and another bridleway in Alstonefield. Life is not dull, the dogs enjoy the research on the ground, although they are not keen at being abandoned when I visit the Records Office, and I am having a great time... just hoping Section of one of the claimed routes at Tissington for some successful outcomes to follow. MADBAG House of Lords calls for reform of TRO process ...asks Chatsworth for more BWs The House of Lords Select Committe reviewing the effectiveness of the 2006 Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act has now reported The Matlock and District BW Access on green lanes. PHP and other organisations opposed to off-roading Group (MADBAG) has asked the Chatsworth estate if it will consider submitted written evidence to the committee calling for new legislation to creating six new concessionary curb off-roading. bridleways to improve access and rider As a ‘first step’ in dealing with the offroading problem the Committee has said safety. that there should be changes in the TRO process. It: Four of the suggested new BWs are * accepted that the exemptions from the extinguishment of motor vehicle in the Darley Dale area. Two are in the rights contained in the NERC Act 2006 may result in damage from motorised Rowsley/Beeley area. vehicles * said that TROs need to be used more widely and more flexibly to address A good deal of work would need some of the evident ongoing problems on green lanes to be done to make the proposed * agreed that the process of drawing up Traffic Regulation Orders can be slow routes fully accessible for riders but and resource-consuming, and creates the risk of legal action MADBAG has said it would be happy to fund-raise to help with the costs. * believes some of the requirements associated with making a TRO are onerous, unnecessary and, in some cases, outdated, and that the case for reform is clear * recommended that the Government should take steps to simplify the process for making TROs with a view to reducing costs and securing better value and greater flexibility and applicability in the use of TROs. Whether the government will act on the recommendations, and if they do, whether the recommendations could make any difference on the ground, or to the willingness of the highway authorities to make TROs, remains to be seen. Back Lane to be BOAT DCC’s growing backlog PHP and the Peak District Green of repairs Lanes Alliance lost the recent public PHP wrote in May to the DCC Fourteen riders including two new inquiry into the rights of way on Cabinet Member for Highways, Cllr members enjoyed fabulous weather Back Lane, Darley Dale and the Simon Spencer, to complain about the on the first MADBAG organised route will become a BOAT. Council failing to carry out repairs pleasure ride on 19 May in support The decision was made entirely on the which it has already allocated funding of the BHS Ride Out Month access basis of historic evidence. This meant but where no action has been taken, fund. that all the evidence of severe public and pointing out to him that DCC did The Highoredish Picnic Site provided nuisance from offroad vehicles which no repairs at all on any green lanes in a marvellous parking area courtesy was presented to the inquiry did not the 2017/18 financial year. The routes of Countryside Services come into play. concerned are all currently impassable and the 7.64 mile route took the The historic evidence was pretty thin with a horse. They are: the top end of riders along quiet lanes and old pack but there are no legal grounds for Chapel Gate, closed to all users horse trails at the start of the Amber objecting to the decision and triggering since December 2014. DCC is now Valley, passing Ogston Reservoir and a second inquiry. on its third consultation on what the Ashover village with two river fords The lane is in a terrible state. PHP character of the repairs should be; to negotiate. will be supporting local residents, Hurstclough Lane, funded for repair Refreshments were gratefully received landowners and riders in efforts to get since 2013/14 and now subject to a back at the picnic site. it repaired and, we hope in due course, second consultation on the character Another little bit of news: a TRO banning motor vehicles. of repair; Ashover BW50 at Marsh Green has Beet Lane, funded for repair since finally got its new bridleway finger 2015/16; post signs just this week thanks to the Brushfield, funded for repair since PRoW officer. The BW order was 2015/16; and confirmed in February 2017 and the - not yet funded, virtually delay was due to Derbyshire County impassable even on foot and now the Council awarding a new contract to a subject of a repair notice under S56 of firm specialising in metal signs. the Highways Act, served by the Peak www.madbag2013.wordpress.com and Northern Footpath Society. email: [email protected] All these routes have been severely FB madbag2013. damaged by off-road vehicles. PHP round-up After eight years and we thought it was time to put together a list of what we have achieved and helped to achieve in that time. In June 2010, Wendy Neilson, Ally Turner, Sue Dunk and Charlotte Gilbert decided to form Peak Horsepower with the aim of improving and extending the network of bridleways in the Peak District and to ensure that the needs of horse riders were considered in decisions made by the National Park and Highway Authorities. Since then, PHP has taken part in eight public inquiries, secured six new bridleways and a similar number of restricted byways, secured12 safe gates, developed and opened two long distance rides, organized pleasure rides, quizzes and talks to raise money for equestrian, air ambulance and access charities, and launched a campaign to get the Pennine Bridleway completed. We now have over 350 members, three of whom are members of Local Access forums, three are BHS bridleway officers and one is a BHS trustee. All BW groups and Riding Clubs in Peak District are now affiliated to PHP. A big thank you to all the members who have helped and supported us. We couldn’t do it without you! Below are some highlights....for full list, please see PHP web site. 2010 2012 (150 members) First ‘wish list’ presented to PDNPA and DCC Join Trails Management Plan steering group Join the Peak District Green Lanes Alliance Lobby PDNPA to ensure RoW for horses 2011 (40 members) Lobby DCC to install ‘horse hops’ Coombs Dale cleared and realigned Contest BOAT claim on Jacob’s Ladder, Riley Lane, and Respond to Govt. review of National Park governance linking routes Affiliate to BHS Help persuade PDNPA to change their policy on TRO’s Help design horse access to Monsal Trail Consultations for TRO on The Roych and Long Causeway Participate in training for RoW research Bridleway claim for Callow Bank, . Advise on off-road code of conduct Join PDNPA Recreation Strategy stakeholder group Staffs CC resurface and install safe gates in Manifold area Produce report on effects of off-roading on Horse Riding in Peak District Evidence and witnesses at Mill Lane BOAT enquiry Official opening of Monsal Tunnels Help National Trust establish BWs on Eastern Moors Establish system for reporting problems on BWs Repaired Taylor Lane, ‘Take back the tracks’ protest

Surveying damage to The Roych 2013 (200 members) Meet with MP, Patrick Mcloughlin, re off-roading Defeat BOAT claim at first Bradley Lane PI BW claim on The Cut, Eyam Consultation for TRO on Brushfield route Consultation for TRO on Chertpit/Leys Lane Contested BOAT claim on Back Lane Contested BOAT claim on Bradley Lane Kinder Loop long distance ride opened Wigley Lane re-surfaced and signed PDNPA put TRO on Long Causeway Commission H+S survey on 6 unsurfaced lanes Repairing Taylor Lane Written evidence to House of Lords Joint Cttee on Draft Deregulation Bill Evidence submitted for Taddington - Priestcliffe BW Respond to Derbyshire cycling strategy BHS changes policy to allow support for permanent TROs PDNPA put TRO on Chertpit Lane, Gt Longstone 2016 (309 members) Official opening of new 70 mile South Peak Loop Part of Brushfield route found to be BW by PI South Peak Loop featured in National ‘Reconomics’ report National Trust establish BW through Evidence to police about illegal offroading on Longstone Opening of the Kinder Loop long distance ride Edge RB - two offroaders successfully prosecuted 2014 (260 members) Chatsworth repair gates on BW Consultation on ‘Greater Peak District Cycling Strategy’ PHP conduct national off-roading survey TROs on The Roych and Chapel Gate Meet with David Blunket re Beeley Hilltop track Meet with DEFRA re Deregulation Bill Take part in BBCs ‘The One Show’ Rider evidence secures Peak Pasture, , as BW BHS director of access visits Peak District Contest BOAT claim on Brushfield PI on Jacobs Ladder and connecting routes. Contest BOAT claim on Rowland lane, Bramley Lane and Peak Pasture Long Causeway repairs and TRO TRO on Leys Lane, Gt. Longstone BHS rights of way committee visits Peak District to see impact of offroading Bradley Lane confirmed as bridleway after 2 public enquiries Oral evidence to the House of Lords on the Pennine Bridleway protest march Deregulation Bill 2017 (361 members) Whole of Brushfield route confirmed as BW after a second PI PI decides Marsh Green Ashover is BW Two members receive BHS Access award TRO on Washgate, Hollinsclough New horse hitching rail installed at Parsley Hay on Tissington Trail Pennine BW protest parade in Glossop Monksdale Lane declared a BW by PI TRO on Derby Lane, Monyash National off-roading survey presented to BHS ARoWAC - featured in Horse and Hound and UK regional media Start work on alternative route for completing PBW Celebratory ride on Long Causeway - repaired and traffic-free Consultation starts on TRO for Wetton route 2015 (296 members) Persuade DCC to consult for TRO on Jacobs ladder, Black Harry declared a BW Stoney Middleton - after 5 years! Respond to TRO consultation on Washgate Take part in BMC video for ‘Mend our Mountains’ appeal Meet with landowner re Doctors Gate BW New BW claims start being submitted to DCC Submitted evidence to new Govt. stakeholder working group But there’s lots more to do....watch this space! AlwaysA PHP Committee Charlotte Gilbert (Chair) Always Claire Brooks (Treasurer) Jenny Campbell Dial 101 Sue Dunk Karen Haywood Please remember to Rosie Ingham report to police any Sue Mayer dangerous incidents you Wendy Neilson see involving motorbikes, Patricia Stubbs (Green quads and 4x4 vehicles, Lanes) or if you see them using Diane Tranter bridleways or restricted Ally Turner byways. Taking a motor Felicity Edmeston vehicle onto a bridleway Kath Stoney (HVRC) or restricted byway is Peter Cooper (SPEED) illegal. Just dial 101. Always Steve Rhodes (SPEED) ask for an incident number Louisa Wilson (SPEED) – without one your Margaret Slater (MADBAG) complaint doesn’t make it Angela Santos Rosa into the statistics. (Chapel & District Riding Club) Representatives of all the riding clubs and groups affiliated to PHP receive agendas and minutes and can also attend committee meetings.

Links to useful publications: Pedal Peak II Newsletters https://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/images/Pedal%20Peak%20ll%20%20Newsletter%20January%202016_tcm44-276067.pdf Local Access Forum Newsletter https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-access-forum-newsletter Waymark magazine (Institute of Public Rights of Way) http://www.iprow.co.uk/index.php?page=page&catId=9 Peak District Green Lanes Alliance newsletter: http://pdgla.org.uk/newsletter-archive/

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