Where can I go and what can I do to help?

So you have a 4x4 and you want to get it all dirty. The book says that your vehicle can drive anywhere and you are keen to have a go. This is not so. The vehicle may be capable of driving almost anywhere but in Britain, at least, you cannot just drive where you please.
It is a common held belief (pun not intended) that you can drive on common land. This is not so. This rule of law however does not deter some people and they can be seen driving all over the place but beware the full weight of the law can descend upon you from a great height. The police are cracking down on such drivers (particularly in South Wales). A recent operation on Gelligaer Common netted 6 motorcycles and 8 4x4s.
So where can you go? Well your first port of call should be to get a good map. The Ordinance Survey 1:50000 maps are a good place to start. The 1:25000 scale maps are better but it gets quite expensive if you want to cover a large area. Right you have a map and are revved up ready to go but wait there is a slight problem. The map may be new but the information it contains is probably out of date. There is a problem with maps that will be sorted out in time. This problem is in regard with tracks that are marked up on the OS maps as Roads Used as Public Paths (RUPP) (you can find out what symbols are used to represent these by looking at the legend on the map, the symbol has changed over the years).
A history lesson follows. Before 1948 there were no definitive maps which set out where footpaths, bridlepaths, etc., existed. The government of the day decreed (after pressure from the Ramblers Association etc.) that each highway authority was to draw up large scale maps detailing the locations of all footpaths and bridlepaths. There was another sort of path to be put on the map, this was the RUPP. Now these RUPPs were further sub-divided (and this is where the subsequent confusion arose) into Cart-Roads used as Footpaths (CRF) and Cart-Road used as Bridlepaths (CRB). Now to the average mind if you have defined a footpath, for the use of people on foot, and a bridlepath, by use of people on horseback and foot, then what is left is a road, for use by people with motors, i.e. cars or motorcycles, on horseback and foot. Unfortunately this is not the case. As can be imagined there were mistakes made and different interpretations have been made as to what exactly is a CRB and a CRF. Depending in which direction your interest lays the emphasis is laid on the Road part or the Bridlepath/Footpath bit and the same goes for the definition of RUPP.
Fortunately the situation is being rectified. There have been various acts of Parliament ordering the highway authorities to bring the maps up to date and reclassify the RUPPs. This is where the bitter struggle lies. Are the RUPPs roads or paths? To answer this the authorities have to consult old maps, documents, etc.. There was also something called user evidence which was that if you had proof that vehicles had used the track consistently and unchallenged, over a period of years (20 or more) then it could be argued that a vehicle right of way existed over that track by right. However in a recent court case (Norton Malreward) it was decided that if the track could not be shown to have had vehicle rights in the past (no documentary evidence, i.e. maps, etc. prior to 1930) then such use was illegal and the use could not be made legal by the production of user evidence (and maybe such evidence could be used to prosecute for illegal use). This is ongoing and the outcome will have far reaching effects if it is not challenged and won by us. Once the tracks have been reclassified the situation is a little clearer. If it is shown that vehicular rights exist then the RUPPs are re-classified as Byways Open to All Traffic (BOAT). This is an unfortunate title as the Open to All Traffic bit frightens the pants of some people who imagine that overnight huge numbers of vehicles are going to descend on their quiet backwater lane. The truth cannot be further from this image. The lanes are not going to alter. The councils have no mandate to upgrade the surface to make them easier to use, all that is changing is the name. (I remember one Rights of Way Officer for a local authority who was under the impression that a BOAT had to be usable by Mr. Joe Average in the family Mini. While he was of this opinion the authority was not going to upgrade any of his RUPPs) As I said some time ago this is an ongoing situation. Unfortunately the process has not been helped by the various local government reorganisations.
You may now be under the impression that once the track is re-classified as a BOAT all is OK but again no. There is the little matter of TROs (Traffic Regulation or Restriction Order). These are applied to roads in order to prevent motor vehicles from using them. There have been some famous TROs placed over the years. A couple that spring to mind are the ones on the Monk's Trod and Brown Trousers. These are more or less permanent, though they were supposed to be temporary, i.e. for a couple of years to allow the tracks to recover from over use. There are others that are seasonal i.e. bottom end of Sarn Helen, The Gap. The TRO is a device used to circumvent the law. It allows the authorities to prevent vehicular use without the bother of a full scale enquiry and a permanent downgrading. Unfortunately for them and fortunately for us there is a slight flaw in the plan. In order for the TRO to have any legal effect a notice must be in place at either end of the track it applies to. No notice, no TRO. It is perhaps peculiar that these notices go missing with great regularity, of course it is illegal to remove them but perhaps aliens don't know this? In order to be really effective the authorities are forced to spend vast sums of money installing and maintaining gates etc.. This would be very difficult on tracks such as the Monk's Trod, which is in open moorland. If the authorities were genuinely concerned about the surface damage then the voluntary restraint would possibly work much better than a TRO and would be a lot cheaper. There are some authorities that are willing to do this and on the whole voluntary restraints do work (the Ridgeway springs to mind).
History lesson over. So back to the plot. Where do you find out about what tracks are usable? Well the obvious answer is the Rights of Way Officer of the local authority of the area you wish to explore. He/she will have all the latest information on what can or cannot be driven. Find out who the person is that you need to see, ring and make an appointment and go along to inspect the Definitive Maps. Be prepared for a long visit, the maps are large but cover a very small area and contain a lot of detail. Sometimes the lane you are looking for is not on the definitive map because it was never a RUPP. In this case it may be on the list of streets. This is the list of council maintainable streets, a lot of what are known as 'whites' are on this list. These are what are sometimes known as county roads. They may have once been surfaced but a lot of them are under considerable disrepair, and this is what you are looking for after all.
If you haven't got the time to spend looking at the definitive maps then give the club's Rights of Way Officer a call and ask him, after all that is why he is there. Ask him how up to date his maps are and for suggestions. If you do manage to get along to view the definitive maps mark up your maps and pass the information on to the RoW officer so that he can mark up his maps and help other enquirers.
So you have marked up the maps and enjoyed your trip into the countryside. Perhaps now that you have had something out you may like to consider putting something back? As indicated above the definitive map holds a lot of information but hard as it may be to imagine it is not the be all or end all of map information. There are many tracks in use today whose origins are lost in the mists of time. It would be nice if you had the time to research some of these tracks. The history associated with the almost forgotten roads can be very interesting. A trip to the County Archives Office can be very rewarding and the people there would welcome you as it will make a change for them to research old maps for evidence of roads instead of doing land searches for property (I was told this by the County Archivist for Mid-Glamorgan). If time is not so freely available how about trying to get on the local authority's Local Access Forum (LAF). These forums meet about every 3 months (mid-week afternoons) and bring together all the user groups, the landowners, farmers, police and local authorities. They are talking shops where all groups concerned with access to the countryside can meet and get to know each other and perhaps persuade each other that they are not the ogres the others perceive them to be. It is also an opportunity to put our case across to the local authority and maybe help in shaping the future policies of the authority. (I attend the Caerphilly County Borough Council Local Access Forum on behalf of the Club and the ARC. The CRoW act has made the setting up of these forums a statutory requirement and so there are, or should be, forums meeting in all the other local authorities. I also attend the Forum for Motorised Sports in Wales.)

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Updated 24th December 2002