REPORT TO POLICE ILLEGAL USE OF GREEN LANES
The 2006 Nature Environment and Rural Communities (NERC) Act has banished motor vehicles from around half of green lanes that these vehicles were formerly able to use.

The NERC Act makes it easier for the police to know whether a vehicle is using a route illegally. Before the Act came into force, the legal status of many routes was so obscure that police were unlikely to prosecute. Things are now much clearer, and RA members can help the police to enforce the law if they regularly send reports of vehicular illegal use. Here are some suggestions about ways of framing your reports to the police:

No matter what the rights of way status of the route, any vehicle that uses it must be “street legal”, i.e. taxed, insured, roadworthy etc. The rider/driver must have a licence. The vehicle must not be ridden/driven in an unsafe manner. If therefore you encounter a vehicle that is plainly not street-legal or is being ridden/driven dangerously, report it straight away to the nearest police station, giving as much information as you can – precise location, time of encounter, number of vehicles, names and addresses of witnesses, photos if you can supply them.

If the place where you encounter vehicles is on the map as a footpath or bridleway, it is now, with very few exceptions, certain that the route has no overriding rights for motor vehicles. NERC has taken care of that. So if you encounter motor vehicles on footpaths and bridleways, they are breaking the law, even if they are street-legal and are being ridden/driven safely (this does not apply to farmers and gamekeepers and other occupiers of the land who are going about their day-to-day business: it only applies to recreational 4X4 and motorbike users – and the occasional recreational quad bike).

Street-legal recreational vehicles are fully entitled to use “Byways Open To All Traffic” (BOATs). These are indicated on OS maps. However, numbers of BOATS have had “Traffic Regulation Orders” (TROs) imposed on them. These orders prohibit vehicles. You will find a circular road traffic sign at either end of routes that have had TROs imposed on them. If you encounter vehicles (apart from farm vehicles) on TRO routes, report them to the police.

This still leaves the question of the legality of recreational vehicles uncertain on quite a few routes. These routes are marked on OS maps as “ORPAs” (other routes with public access), or are marked just as “white roads” with no indication of the rights of way that apply to them. Having been banned from public footpaths and bridleways, vehicle users will tend to push their luck by using these routes, in the hope that the uncertainty of their legal status will protect vehicle users from prosecution. If you encounter vehicles on them it is worth reporting them to the police. Gayle Lane near Stainburn (see separate report in this issue) is an ORPA under threat.

Summing up, please report all illegal use to the police, and always ask for acknowledgement of your report, and a crime number. This will enable you to follow up your report.

We have prepared a pro-forma that can be used by RA members who wish to report to the police encounters with illegally used motor vehicles. You can get the pro-forma by email from bart.otley@virgin.net. Or you can get it in paper form from YDGLA, Otley Civic Centre, Cross green, Otley LS21 1HD.

- Mike Bartholomew, Footpath Committee Chairman