UKC

On Saturday myself and my partner went to climb at Fly Wall at Wintour's Leap via the Woodcroft Quarry route and met the neighbour in the process of putting up a new fence to try and stop people going through his property to access the quarry. I had a long conversation with him regarding the access issues and on searching the forums have found that the problem has been covered quite extensively already ( most recently in https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/crag_access/wintours_leap_-_the_quarry_ac... ). It seems that things are however escalating and the quarry owners are now considering debolting the quarry to try to prevent climbers entering. In my opinion this situation should never have been reached, and whilst the problem has been caused by non-climbers it seems that the attitude of some climbers has not helped the situation. I think that this has been in part due to the slightly woolly advice "If you do climb here, please be careful not to damage any fences in the area." that is present on the UKC logbook page.

Whilst I don't seriously believe the landowners would or even could debolt the quarry, they could definitely erect more severe fencing and surely it would be so much better to retain some kind of access for climbers. I don't feel that "stop being so lazy and walk round" is the most useful or realistic response to this issue either. It would appear to me and also to the neighbour concerned that the fairy cave solution could work very well here. It would allow access for both sport and trad climbers. whilst keeping out the undesirables. Allegedly these persons have been doing everything from littering and drug taking to deliberately tormenting the peregrines.

What I don't know is how to move this forward. Can the BMC help and who is the best person to contact?

Rick Sewards is access rep and he is well aware of situation I believe. Just walk around is the most sensible and realistic advice - there are currently no other options 

The UKC logbook access notes don't update correctly for some reason. Access update on RAD here:

Long line of west-facing crags above the Wye, rising to nearly 100 metres. Mostly quarried in the past. Mixed ethic; mainly trad but some sport. The land above the crag contains a number of private gardens.

July 2018 Update  - Woodcroft Quarry

The owners of Woodcroft Quarry have put up new fencing and barbed wire to attempt to stop people accessing the quarry.  At least one pair of climbers have also been asked to leave the quarry. The background to this is that although there is an agreement with the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust which allows climbing on Wintour's Leap from GO Wall to North Wall, no such agreement exists for the privately-owned quarry (or indeed Fly Wall) and there have previously been attempts to enforce a ban on climbing in the quarry.  One further issue (which may well have prompted the latest action)  is that in the last couple of years there has been an increasing incidence of anti-social behaviour from non-climbers in the quarry. At present there is no direct access from the top - of course, this does not prevent access using any of the other entry points for Wintour's Leap.  In the meantime please do NOT attempt to circumvent the new barrier by trespassing onto the garden or driveway of the house immediately to the left of the quarry entrance - the owner of this house is very reasonable and has been well-disposed to climbers.

I'd contact either the local access rep - Rick Sewards or the Access Officer for England, Rob Dyer. Details here: https://www.thebmc.co.uk/list-of-bmc-access-reps