Motorcycle Misuse on the County Durham Coast A Report to Turning the Tide 1999 1. Background Turning the Tide is a programme for the restoration of the Durham coastline following one hundred years of damage by the coal mining industry, and extends to the coastal strip between Ryhope to Crimdon and Hart. The programme includes input from the county, district and town councils, to- gether with various national and local amenity and conservation organisations [see Appendix I]. Turn- ing the Tide sets out to remove post-industrial debris, make landscape improvements, promote nature conservation and encourage more and better public access to the area. This public access will be primarily by means of open-access land, public footpaths and cycle tracks, both existing and new. The needs of the disabled are catered for wherever possible. Motorcycle misuse of the sites and facilities being improved by Turning the Tide is a significant prob- lem. Illegal use of land and paths by motorcyclists has been a constant feature of this area (and adjoin- ing regions) for many years. As a phenomenon illegal motorcycling is cyclical and mobile: it comes and goes, it moves around. However, while some places, especially degraded land, may be able to accommodate this activity on a ‘blind eye’ basis, in places, and at times, there is a significant level of conflict between lawful and unlawful uses of land. The improvement of land and paths is, and increas- ingly will, bring the public on foot, cycle (and perhaps horseback) into contact and conflict with the motorcyclists illegally using the sites. The provision of facilities for the disabled and cyclists immediately militates against conventional ‘physical’ methods of excluding illegal motorcyclists: fences, barriers and stiles. Experience suggests that it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to improve and promote facilities for the wider general public without making access easier for the ‘cowboy motorcyclist’. In 1999 Turning the Tide commissioned an investigation to look at ways of tackling this problem. Contents 1. Background 1 2. The scope of the investigation 2 3. Project area and special sites 3 4. Illegal motorcycling - the legal position 4 5. The impact of illegal motorcycling 5 6. Site surveys and consultations 6 7. The police approach 7 8. Access corridors and the barrier paradox 9 9. Conservation site issues 10 10. Diversionary sites 11 11. Other methods of control 13 12. Conclusions 15 13. Recommendations 15 14. Acknowledgements 16 1 Motorcycle Misuse on the County Durham Coast A Report to Turning the Tide 1999 2. The scope of the investigation Turning the Tide resolved to survey the current situation to look for as wide a range of possible solutions as might exist. The specific aim is to prevent, as far as is reasonably possible, illegal use of land and paths within the Turning the Tide scheme, consonant with the general aim of improving the amenity of the area for the general public. This is not necessarily to be wholly negative to local motorcyclists: one part of the investi- gation was specified to look at the possibility of providing a suitable site (or sites) to divert the illegal use to manageable areas. The work was broken down into specific units: • Site surveys of the project area. • Establish dialogue with motorcycle users and user groups in the area. • Talk to the Turning the Tide partner organisations about their perspective on the problems. • Consider methods of enforcing against offenders. • Consider the potential for a diversionary site for motorcy- clists. • Make recommendations. 2 Motorcycle Misuse on the County Durham Coast A Report to Turning the Tide 1999 3. Project area and special sites Turning the Tide has set the boundaries for this investigation as the strip bounded by the sea to the east and the coastal railway line to the west. Ryhope marks the northern limit, and Crimdon - Hart Station the southern limit. The width of the strip varies from a kilometre down to approximately 100 metres, averaging approxi- mately 500 metres. The length of the strip is approximately 18 kilo- metres (approximately 11 miles). Not all this strip is being improved under Turning the Tide. Some sites are of special conservation or amenity value (e.g. Chourdon Point, Dene Mouth and Crimdon Dene). The town of Seaham in part occupies the whole width of the strip. Peterlee, Horden, Blackhall Colliery and other set- tlement areas have the railway as their eastern boundary and so lie immediately adjacent to the project area. Although Turning the Tide has de- fined the project area for this re- port, it is essential to accept that the problem of illegal motorcy- cling is, by its very nature, mobile. Not all, but a significant part, of the problem appears to enter the project area from areas of popu- lation immediately to the west, or by linear access along the fore- shore corridor. Plainly this inves- tigation must have physical lim- its, but any solution suggested or adopted needs to take account of the situation in adjacent areas. 3 Motorcycle Misuse on the County Durham Coast A Report to Turning the Tide 1999 4. Illegal motorcycling - the legal position The use of motorcycles on the highway and on open land is governed by the various Road Traffic Acts - primarily the Road Traffic Act 1988 as amended. S.34(1)(a) makes it an offence to drive any motor vehicle on ‘any common land, moorland or land of any other description... without lawful authority.’ For ‘lawful authority’ it is safe to regard this as being the express permission of the landowner and/or occupier of the land. S.34(1)(b) makes it an offence to drive a motor vehicle on a footpath or bridleway without lawful authority. In this latter case the owner of the land over which a footpath or bridleway runs may give permission for a motorcyclist to use that footpath or bridleway, but that ‘lawful authority’ cannot displace the other pro- visions of the Road Traffic Act: the invitee vehicle and driver must comply with the rules on (such as) driving licence, insurance, MoT, excise duty, number plates, just as if the path were a normal motor road. Any motorcyclist using open land without permission might be convicted of the offence under s.34(1)(a), but would not be liable to conviction under any other Road Traffic Act provisions, except those that can now apply in ‘public places’ too (e.g. dangerous driving). Any motorcyclist using a footpath or bridleway without permission might be convicted under s.34(1)(b) for being on that path, and is also liable to conviction for such as not having a driving licence or insurance. There are two caveats that rather spoil the simple application of the law in this area: • Not every motorcycle is subject to s.34 (and other sections) of the Road Traffic Act. This is because the Act defines a motor vehicle as being ‘... intended or adapted for use on the road.’ Whether or not a motorcycle is intended or adapted is a question of fact for the magistrates in each case. Where a motorcycle was originally sold as a road machine then there is usually no problem in satisfying the ‘intended or adapted’ test. When a motorcycle was originally sold as, say, a moto-cross racing bike, or as a bike for small children, then the courts can ,and have, held that such machines are not intended or adapted, and the cases have failed. This leads to the police and Crown Prosecution Service becoming reluc- tant to bring such cases before the courts. • Not every path used by the public is a highway. For s.34 and most other provi- sions (e.g. driving licences, insurance) the Road Traffic Act applies only to ‘roads’. All highways are roads, which is how the Act is brought to bear on footpaths and bridleways. But increasingly linear recreational tracks are being provided that are not dedicated to the public as any sort of highway - they are ‘permissive routes’. The more serious motoring offences, e.g. dangerous driv- ing, will apply to these linear permissive routes because such are ‘public places’, but the more ordinary offences, such as committed by illegal motorcyclists by virtue of their presence, will not apply. Possible solutions to these two problems lie in the recommendations section. 4 Motorcycle Misuse on the County Durham Coast A Report to Turning the Tide 1999 Newcastle Evening Chronicle 5.9.95 5. The impact of illegal A dad triggered an unlikely police chase when he took his youngster’s mini motorcycle on a hair- motorcycling raising test ride... rode across all four lanes, forced an elderly woman to jump from his path... admitted the charges of dangerous driving, driving Illegal motorcycling can range from very without a licence, and having no insurance. low impact - a few youngsters riding South Wales Argus 19.5.93 A man has been fined and banned for drink-driv- around a remote post-industrial site, to a ing - on a toy motorcycle... became abusive to real threat to life and limb, damage to sites, the driver and was later seen riding the bike... towards the man’s car before kicking a head- and continual noise nuisance. It is a wide- light... Magistrates fined him £200 and dis- spread and regular problem in many areas. qualified him from driving for 12 months. In the North of England it has given rise to The Daily Telegraph 3.6.99 A father who rode on the back of his son’s toy a series of agency and police initiatives, motorbike has been convicted of driving while well documented over the past 15 years.