Moel y Gaer Hillfort. Wikipedia Commons photo; Attribution: Eiran Evans
A CAMPAIGN has been launched to crack down on illegal off-road bikers who are wrecking North Wales heritage sites.
Moel y Gaer hillfort is just one of a number of historic locations across North Wales under siege from bikers and 4x4s carving up the countryside.
Now the Heather and Hillforts project has launched a “Don’t leave home without it” campaign to fight back.
Project leaders want farmers, ramblers and others who enjoy the countryside to carry a police telephone number with them – or even store it into their mobile phones – to report the vandals.
Summer has arrived again with the same problems of 4×4’s and off road bikers tearing up our green track ways in the pursuit of a noisy and incredibly damaging hobby that reduces these tracks to a rutted mess; even worse, thin soil is worn away leaving rocks unprotected…
Denbighshire County Archaeologist Fiona Gale said: “Twenty years ago a grass track about four feet wide ran up here along the ridge but now in places it’s more than 15 feet wide and the heather and grass have been ripped away by the bikes and rain has then washed the surface away exposing the bare rock.”
… read on
Perhaps the advice of using your mobile to report such illegal activity needs to be underlined once more till this idiotic practice is outlawed once and for all.
The Heritage Journal 
8 comments
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28/06/2010 at 20:27
Jennifer Ritzler
Re youtr comments
“Perhaps the advice of using your mobile to report such illegal activity needs to be underlined once more till this idiotic practice is outlawed once and for all”
Surely this activity is illegal anyway, therefore the current law just needs to be enforced?
29/06/2010 at 14:15
heritageaction
The following Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act gives some of the restrictions, but I suspect that it is up to the local authorities to restrict access to vulnerable green lanes…
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2006/ukpga_20060016_en_7
29/06/2010 at 15:25
Don Petrie
The term ‘Greenlane’ is a misnomer as it carries no legal credence. In this case, it does not appear to be a route that allows vehicular access anyway and therefore any vehicle using it is breaking the law.
Regarding vulnerable ‘Green lanes’, if they have vehicular rights, then they are in fact ROADS and the highways authority has a duty to maintain them, in the same way that a surfaced road with potholes needs to be repaired.
29/06/2010 at 20:28
heritageaction
You are right of course this is not a ‘green lane’ but a green track way, the issue though, trail bikes and 4x4s, the damage is the same on both.
A local link; http://www.ridgewayfriends.org.uk/FRhistory.html
30/06/2010 at 09:00
Don Petrie
The simple fact is that if you have a road and it is unsurfaced, the surface will suffer. All those lovely country lanes much beloved by Sunday afternoon drivers were ancient sunken trackways. The reason they are sunken is due to eroision caused by horse and cart and the subsequent water run off.
If an unsurfaced road is popular enough to carry traffic levels that cause damage then it needs to be treated like any other road and needs a proper tarmacced road surface as per other country lanes. No more damage, no more need to use to use a 4 wheel drive to traverse the route and the problem is sorted once and for all.
20/03/2012 at 19:20
paul
“green lanes” (B.O.A.T’s) are perfectly legal to travel upon with motorised vehicles. Yes there are idiots who will go where ever they please and tear up footpaths and this is of course illegal. If you are going to phone police make sure what type of trail they are on first as they could be within the law. I think there has been an increase in the illegal riding/driving of vehicles since 2006 when a huge amount of “green lanes” were closed to vehicles due to pressure from walkers groups. If the remaining lanes are targeted and closed where are the groups supposed to go. The countryside is supposed to be for all to enjoy and walkers have a vast majority of access rights. For example
In Flintshire there are 1056.2 km of public rights of way. These comprise public footpaths (938.5km), public bridleways (106.5km) and byways open to all traffic (BOATs) (11.2km).
With there being so little places for people to go, it comes as no surprise that illegal riding is such a problem.
I am not condoning the actions of the idiot minority but simply trying to show the other side of the coin for those who wish to enjoy the countryside in a different way.
24/06/2012 at 00:35
Rod
Paul… Well said. If you then vector in those tracks that have been lost through incorrect mapping it becomes all the more galling!
Trouble is that wih the diminishing resource of BOATS etc. the pressure mounts on the available legal tracks in terms of usage – more lost trails = more people using a diminishing resource= more erosion /wear.
Daft thing is I wa involved in a case where a local tried to ban vehicles from a lane stating the top soil had eroded revealing he rock beneath th trail… Erm NO… The rock now evident was in fact the original road surface that was cobbled down in the 1800s. Case closed in favour of vehicular access, oh how I smirked!
Rod
11/02/2013 at 22:29
Lewis esposito
The vast majority of people who visit the countryside, particularly Snowdonia where I live, come for the peace and wild beauty of the rugged landscape. Here in the Gwyrfai Valley quad and motorbike drivers are starting to damage the landscape and disturb that peace,by illegal off-roading. In- effective, overstretched policing has brought together the farmers, house holders, councillors and agencies to agree on a solution to stop these activities and to preserve our footpaths and landscape.
Lewis secretary ‘Betws Garmon Pathways Group’