UKC

I have just noticed that UKC have mentioned this on their feed.

I am slightly surprised that they have come painfully late to this issue and wondered why? As those that have been following this will be aware, the deadline for completing the poll to oppose this was yesterday. 
 

is there a political reason for this I wonder? Just a question...

Hi Neil,

Having climbed together with you in Font, you know how much the area means to me.

When it comes to our timing I'll admit that we were late; however, last week - in/around the time that this was unfolding - we were (rightly) focussing all of our efforts on the server attack that had taken place, not least because we had a legal (and moral) obligation to do so.

When it comes to being 'painfully late', I feel like you're holding us to quite an exacting set of standards. To add a degree of context, Planet Grimpe - the French climbing website - only reported on this yesterday. Across the Atlantic neither Climbing Magazine or Rock and Ice have reported the issue, and closer to home it hasn't received a single mention by Climber Magazine. Most news reports on the matter were published in/around the 16-17th (Planet Mountain etc..), which is exactly when we were in the midst of figuring out quite what to do + how to respond to the server attack.

As per another comment I made within a separate thread, what I always say to people is why not drop us a quick message? We're far from being uncontactable, plus in this scenario we even know each other, so I find it strange when people only decide to write a letter of complaint post event, when it could so easily have solved by a quick message prior.

When it comes to your final comment regarding whether there's a political reason behind this, I genuinely don't understand what you're implying - that we're somehow in the pay of oil giants, or that we love fossil fuels, or that we think Font would somehow be better for this?! We aren't Bond villains sitting behind our desks, we're people - climbers - hence I am not only confused by the comment - I am also quite taken aback by it.

Thanks for the reply Rob, I also get your point about maybe contacting you all about it. It pinged up on my social media a couple of days before the deadline and to be honest I didn’t think to contact you about it. It was only when I saw it a day after the deadline I thought you were a little late to the party.

I am not going to apologise for holding you up there as, in my eyes you are a major climbing news source and well respected and with an ethical climbing community focus so I would expect you to publicise this in a timely manner. I apologise if that upsets people and it is my opinion. The thumbs ain’t gonna change that. However, I now appreciate you may have had other things on your mind.

finally in term of the political statement, perhaps I should have explained myself a little clearer. I understand that sponsorship provides a portion of your income and I also understand that sometimes companies can exert pressure to either publicise something or not. Of course I realise that many of the companies that sponsor you have a vested interest in climbing but some may have political leanings or pressures that could cause them to exert pressure in a certain direction. The point that you posted the information literally minutes too late was weird in my eyes and arose my interest.
 

Of course I do not think you are all holed up having just stormed the JCB headquarters and taken it over as your evil empire base though I do think that Paul Phillips would look pretty sinister stroking a black cat with a diamond necklace.

Neil

Minutes too late for what?

I just signed it - https://www.change.org/p/commissaire-de-l-enquête-publique-refusez-l-...

Alan

You know me better than this Neil. I found out about it via a WhatsApp from John & Amy on Monday and the UKC post went up about it the same day.

I didn't realise it was so close to the cut off but there's still signatures coming in which I hope will still be of use.