THE STORY OF TRAIL RIDING IN THE UK

(a personal version;angry critics of any inaccuracies can write their own version!)

It all started in America. Well thats no surprise ! Around l968 the Japanese introduced small lightweight trail machines like the Suzuki 120cc Trail Cat. There was also a Hodaka 110cc that never made it to the UK.

A lot of "trail" Honda 70cc andc 90cc models appeared around this time basd on the familiar Honda 50 and 90. Suzuki and Yamaha soon followed. In l972 President Richard Nixon made a Presidential Order to accept and make provision for trail riding in the USA and so we have state supported and organised trails on a big scale especillly in Washington State, California,the Mid West and New England. I toured all these sites in l984 for the UK Govt who were interested in making similar provision for trail riding in the UK.

Led by "Motor cycle" journalist John Ebbrell (killed in a road accident in l974) the trail riding movement soon gained in the UK. The TRF started in l970 and I was a founder member. George Abbey started the West Yorkshire Group the same year and became club President.

I started the Derbyshire group in l970 one of the first.

Regional groups sprung up all over the country. Especially stong groups got going in Kent,the south west, Teeside, the South Midlands and Cumbria.

At first the TRF hadnt a clue about rights of way and it took till l975 before the TRF appointed its first national Rights of Way Officer (me of course!) based on me being an ex policeman and being a rights of way officer for the Ramblers Association who soon threw me out when they found out I was a trail rider ! The first challenges were on the Ridgeway that runs for 250 miles from Oxfordshire to Wiltshire and Public Inquiries followed with partial success.

During these early years the Ramblers Association were just as vociferous as they are now in campaigning for a total ban on trail riding.

Having failed to make any political headway during the l981 Countryside Act when the Tory Govt saw no reason to restrict trail riding and rejected the RA and Liberal Peers who pressed for a ban.

The l981 Bill was the high water mark for TRF success never to see it again as the tide of public opinion turned against trail riding and in particular against the new "sport" of 4x4s who during the late l980s came new on the scene and caused havoc by going out in large convoys of 150 vehicles. The PR damage has never really recovered.

Which is why the "love affair" as Peter Plummer called it with the 4x4s by the TRF has not excactly been a success with to this writer few discernable benefits whatsoever!

The TRF was fortunate in having very wise management from l978 to l988 with canny trade union official Seymour Moss as chair for many years. There was also useful unity in having the ACU and BMF joining forces with the TRF in the corridors of power. The ACU (as now) have the key to the official corridors and the TRF had the finance to make it a success.. It no longer seems to work quite the same!

The first round of Public Inquiries into TRF Byway claims came along in the early 80s in the Lake District based on claims I made on behalf of the Cumbria Group utilising invaluable veteran ACU riders(then in their 70s) who gave unique user evidence at public inquiries which clearly helped enormously in getting Byway status for most of the superb Lakeland mountain passes like Gatesgarth, Stile End and Breast High Passes.

At that time the anti vehicular lobby was less powerful and amazingly we even had support for Byway from Kentmere Parish Council and others. I have not heard of a single parish council for a decade who is anything but hostile. Anyway the TRF in its first big test in a national park came through rather well with l0 Byways out of 20 claimed.

Of the 5 major mountain pass "trails" open and well used in the Lakes in the 70s 80s and 90s only two Byways (Breast High and Stile End) and still fully open in 2008.

The Lake District is no longer a major trail riding area as a result.

The Govt carried out an official "Green Lane Study" in l977 which found that the problem of trail riding (alleged the RA) was negligable and there was no justification for a ban.

Indeed this study declared that the TRF was second only to the Ramblers Association in being a leading rights of way body ahead of the horse riders and cyclists. Yet still the TRF felt unable to fund a full time national RoW officer and this of course still applies relying instead on volunteers. With hindsight this was not a wise decision and somehow the TRF 20 years ago should have found a way of financing this.

A big step forward came in 2004 when the TRF appointed four regional RoW advisors working under contract for one day per week.

Throughout the l980s several challenges by the police to prosecute TRF members were made.

The first major challenge came in l977 at Chapel en le Frith Magistrates Court in Derbyshire against 5 TRF members for riding a public bridleway. The TRF backed a defence and I engaged a lawyer to defend all 5. I provided convincing evidence that the bridleway was in fact an old road and the Magistrates threw out the case and found the 5 trail riders not guilty. Many similar attempts were made but none ever reached the courts again as the TRF were able to convince the police and Crown Prosecution Service to back down.

Except one very important case in North East Derbyshire(I was not longer TRF Nat ROW Officer then) which led to demands for a change in the law to take away our common law rights which led to NERC.

It did not help that in many areas the TRF did not seem interested in making Byway claims and were just content to use green lanes with the wrong status. In Mid and North Wales for example not one single Byway claim was made over a 35 year period though Mid Wales was a major trail riding area and still is.

The exceptions to this unofficial policy of course were in Wiltshire, in the north east, South Yorkshire, and the western Dales where the TRF rose to the challenge and worked very hard over many years making Byway claims which today are a vital trail riding resource.

So looking back over 38 years the record of achievement (and I dont count riding up and down green lanes) that reflects real credit to the TRF is patchy but is still something we can be proud of even though these gains are now under attack especially in the Dales.

The severe pressure for change to take away trail riders common law rights came to fruition in 2006 with the passing of NERC 2006 which in my opinion closed about half of the 5000 miles of green lanes.

We had no friends during the passage of the Bill. Even the British Horse Society put the boot in and the vehicular lobby TRF/ACU/BMF/LARA proved ineffectual with all party support for closures and worse the cancelling of a 1000 TRF Byway claims. The blackest day in TRF history !

But thanks to those valiant few whose efforts before 2005 to make Byways had succeeded , there are still 4500km of Byways and we also have plenty of UCRs, so trail riding WILL continue and survive long into the 21st century!

BRIAN THOMPSON 16 SEPT