I'm interested because there is debate about this at my local club (not in UK). I was wondering:
* is free access to private land for climbers common in England & Wales? (As far as I understand, it's mandatory in Scotland; please correct me if I'm wrong)
* why wouldn't a landowner charge for access to his land? How do you convince him not to?
In reply to humptydumpty: its currently the case that access is granted to most crags as they tend to be on open access land designated as such ynder the CRoW act. unfortunately there are a number of crags that are not and access is usually allowed with litlle oe no restriction. then theres the odd landowner who are basically nimbyists. the bmc does a great job of negotiating access at these and the other sites.
Access is volatile and isnt helped by simpleminded individuals who do things that pisses the LL off.
Some landowners use the poor excuse of the potential to be sued by people who injure themselves. I don't know enough about this to make a comment but I suspect thatcharging for access might mean you as a LL would have a greater duty of care to those that use your facilities. But as I said I know not enough to say that with conviction and I suspect its bollox spouted to keep people off your land so you can shoot grouse and hunt foxes illegally for fun and merryment. Who knows but I hope one day we can have a Scottish style access rule for UK and Wales.
You used to have to pay a small fee for climbing at High Tor, though unless you used the cafe they often didn't get you, I don't know if this still operates, we were all given lifetime tickets when we made the tv programme there http://www.ukclimbing.com/images/dbpage.php?id=114471
but the fee was tiny , only about a shilling, Nothing near as bad as the High Rocks charge which I believe is about £10 for a day, There is also a charge at Bowles but they get round this by claiming it's for car parking, and it wasn't too expensive last time I went. Paying to park at Harrisons was on trust, but we usually did.
That's the first I've heard that you're supposed to pay to climb at High Tor so I imagine its free now.
High Rocks is good but I've only climbed there once since the £10 price increase. I understand that an annual pass is about £35 which is obviously better.
I'm sure we both lived in the same areas of London Al Morden/Sutton? and for us it was 1 hour to High Rocks or 2.5 hours to the Peak. The Peak would win 95% of the time.
In reply to humptydumpty: In fact most (NT, National Park Authorities etc.) do charge, but indirectly through car parking fees. Another major crag that requires payment to climb on is Tintagel (it can be circumvented with low cunning) and you also have to obtain written permission to climb there.
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