Someone mentioned new ACU forestry rules. Not heard owt. What's that all about then?

you have to wear a checked shirt, carry an axe and sing the Monty Python lumberjack song.

what about the suspenders and a Brarrrr

its twofold

a) under the CROW act of 2002 (?) where the bobblies (sorry ramblers) have the right to trespass (sorry roam) through your back garden (sorry specific open bits of land - coloured yellow on new OS maps). anyway the forestry commission woods are all classed as open so you now have to apply miles in advance (like 6 months) so they can notify someone/somewhere that they are using one of their 28 days (under the CROW act you can shut a piece of land from right to roam for up to 28 individual separate days, etc)

anyway its eminently sensible but bloody hassle

the ACU have negotiated some sort of new deal with forestry which means we have to send a from through rugby to hire forestry land. I'm not too sure on the details but all our clubs/centre officials aren't that pleased about it as it suddenly appeared with no covering note. lots of (awkward) questions have been asked and I'm sure we'll get an answer. BTW we have been getting on excellently with the Forestry commission locally and they want us to use their land more (because motorcyclists are one of the few people who actually want to hire a forest)

anyway without wanting to knock what the ACU / Trials and Enduro Committee / whoever has done this we just haven't had enough info communicated to us to make us amenable to it (considering we didn't have a problem before)

we tend to hire big forests for our enduros, i don't think we use any for trials IIRC (we do use several bits of MOD land for trials buts thats something else)

so yes Monty python jokes .......

rabie