UKC

Just a request for help please people. I was chatting to Les Ainsworth (Lancs access rep) yesterday about how to avoid any issues as people slowly and safely return to climbing in Lancs. Les makes the following requests, which it would be really great if locals could help with. 

Parking Notes 

• Jumbles:  Park as for Ousels and walk in
• Stronstrey Bank:  Avoid parking at cricket ground
• Pinfold:  No more than two cars

Avoid because of outstanding access issues

• Withnell Qy
• Shore Qy
• Pudsey Qy
• Castle Qy

Avoid because of potential to upset locals

• Hall Stones
• Craig Y Longridge
• Witches Qy

Loads of rock in Lancs, so any help with these few bits would be much appreciated. Any questions let me know and I'll check with Les. 

Thanks.

Paul Evans (BMC NW area secretary)

Not being funny but, upset locals? So if i go for a bit of traversing at longridge alone, keep myself to myself, be quiet the locals are all going to get butt hurt and think im spreading covid-19?

If that's what it takes for now to keep access in the future, of course ill comply. But my god, these locals sound like a miserable bunch.

Fair enough if you were in a big group, and or disturbing the peace.

(cue dislikes)

It can be quite a busy crag, I empathise with you as The BMC own it and we already adhere to "rules" to keep the neighbours happy.

What I'm not sure is how we govern when it is ok to go these crags? 

Really quiet at Wilton 1 today... We got to see the peregrine's as well, which is always special...

Of all crags Longridge is one not to go to. It’s in someone’s back garden and people are tetchy. Sure, it might be undue, unfounded tetchiness but ‘a few weeks’ isn’t going to hurt you.. and this is from someone who was critical of the BMC’s ‘ban’ on climbing. 

If word gets out that Longridge is open It’s unlikely you’ll be traversing alone

Climbers were there long before the houses.

They knew what they were buying and the outlook. Holiday homes anyway!

How are they going to catch it all that grunting and heavy breathing!

Can anyone tell me if access is possible to Stanhope at the moment? The BMC RAD is ambiguous and I've seen posts online from 5 years ago saying a fence had been put up.

Also, how toddler friendly is it? I'm keen to take my son out with me and he likes exploring quarries, but lots of them have ponds and a lots of drops around the base... 

Can i ask why Longridge is still sketchy? We own the land. Which i paid for at the time.

The ‘neighbours’ shouldn't be there anyway, they are supposed to be holiday lets.

This was discussed in some depth at the area meeting last night. Following this Les spoke to Pete Black who very kindly and promptly spoke to residents (at least 6 properties were occupied). 5 residents spoken to are happy, one was undecided. CyL now removed from the "avoid" list. 

Thanks for interest and comments all who contributed to thread. In the event of any access issues at NW crags, PM me, or contact Les (or Mark Hounslea for Cheshire). 

Cheers

Paul

great work paul! Now thats an access rep....

Excellent. Thanks to all involved. Great job. 

Stanhope Dene Upper Lakeside

You may be ok visiting this part as it says that although there are concerns the landowner is allowing climbing at present. 

Thanks Pete, but that's the wrong crag I realised I put the wrong name doh! Possibly my tablet autocorrected it.

I'm talking about  Stanworth Quarry. BMC RAD says current advice is to not go but only uses an amber (not red) circle and there are some logs of boulders last year on UKC. Paul doesn't mention it above and the guidebook basically suggests going but that you could be asked to leave. I'm hoping someone local ish can tell me whether the current practical situation is any different from the official one.

Thanks

Hi Si, sorry, I missed this yesterday. I don't recall Stanworth being raised at area meetings for a while, I would assume OK so long as you follow access instructions. There are no access updates in Les's 2019 supplement.

Can't advise re child suitability other than to say looks grassy under routes on RHS. 

Let us know how you get on if you go.

Paul

Cheers, I'll pass on to Les & Pete, Adam. Les is a legend..

Paul

This is really helpful and great work. 

And an update from Les, he says can you - and anyone else visiting stanworth - park on the main road, they've got a bit picky about people parking on the side road since they tarmacked it. I'll update RAD, can someone please update the access notes on here? Cheers. Paul.

Brilliant, thanks Paul. 

Thanks very much for all this excellent work, especially from Les, Mark and the access teams. I overheard the discussion on CyL on the virtual BMC meet and found it rather depressing that when local access experts say hold off for a little while for things to get sorted out,  that some climbers take that as an affront, especially on BMC crag. We need to remember that alongside individual rights sit wider responsibilities, especially at a time when the population is frightened. Glad to hear CyL access is now quietly resolved without unhelpful confrontations.

That’s an interesting interpretation of the discussion that was had... very different to the one I took from being in that meeting. 
 

My impression was that people were justifiably questioning the timescale of the current advice and asking -in a pretty polite and measured way- what criteria are in place to make sure that it isn’t longer than necessary (or even counterproductive). 
 

Nothing depressing from my point of view. In fact if the discussion hadn’t happened we wouldn’t have realised that we were anticipating a problem which turns out not to exist. 

Tom, can you clarify, is there more detail on the CyL position than in the OP above? 

See above, its all covered....?

No more detail... the latest that I’ve heard is the good news from Paul’s post above:

“...Les spoke to Pete Black who very kindly and promptly spoke to residents (at least 6 properties were occupied). 5 residents spoken to are happy, one was undecided. CyL now removed from the "avoid" list.”

Thanks, sorry, I had somehow missed that, really good news

I never said it was impolite but a lack of regard for the concerns for the CyL neighbours views was clear from some contributers (as it has been much more impolitely on line). I feel such views are potentially counterproductive. Ian Hall summed it up on a BMC Q&A

"What should we bear in mind when travelling to go walking or climbing?

I think the biggest challenge is in determining what it is reasonable to do on any given day given the situation is changing rapidly. Some local communities are likely to be very anxious about visitors. We all have a social responsibility to be very aware of the impact our activities may have on local communities, and getting this balance right is difficult. I think risk of transmitting this virus through walking or climbing activities is very low but if the outdoor community alienate people in the national parks and other places we value so highly there may be longterm detrimental repercussions."

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/covid-and-the-outdoors

I wouldn’t disagree with the approach you’re advocating. Neither do I think anything was said at Monday’s area meeting that disagreed with it. So I suspect that everyone is more or less in agreement!
 

This is why I thought I’d just point out that whatever you ‘overheard’ from the zoom session seems to have given you a worse impression of the dialogue than I think is warranted. Perhaps you heard some things out of context? (Most of the chat about longridge happened before Lynn had logged in). Or perhaps things that you’d read online coloured your impression of what you heard?

Anyway, it seems we all agree that -as per usual- we need to be socially responsible in using all crags, including CyL (as the signs there always remind us).