BMW/OXFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL FORCING HORSE RIDERS ON TO BUSY ROADS

[PeterNatt]

STOP OXFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL AND BMW FROM FORCING HORSE RIDERS TO RIDE ON BUSY ROADS.

A protest is being held at 9.30 a.m. on Tuesday 9th November 2007 outside
Oxfordshire County Council. County Hall, New Road, Oxford, OX1 1ND about the collusion between BMW and Oxfordshire County Council to close an ancient bridleway that crossed the Cowly BMW/Mini site.

Although they have promised to provide an alternative route for walkers and pedestrians they are not providing an alternative route for horse riders forcing horse riders to ride along a busy dual carridgeway.

Any support would be appreciated as they need to be shown that horseriders treat this matter very seriously.

Questions regarding the closure of the route have been put on the agenda of the County Councils meeting which starts at 10.00 a.m.

 

[lizstuguinness]

how about gathering all the artcles on rider and pony deaths due to the roads and shove that in their faces?

looking for a new car, never liked bmw's anyway. (although was thinking of a mini) wont be buying one unless they sort this out safely.

cant make it im afraid, but count me in, in sprit.

 

[carthorse]

Sorry,I thought no one had ridden on this bridleway for at least 10 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A farmer wanted to close a bridleway near us and I objected and asked for it to be re routed but the farmer didn't want to .I have to ride up the bridleway until it comes to a dead end because a road crosses it that is not safe to cross ,then turn round and ride back. This is so that if there is any closure asked for I can prove it is ridden on.

 

[PeterNatt]

The bridleway was used regularly and evidence was provided to demonstrate that it had been ridden for many years.

 

[Pedantic]

If riders, walkers bikers ect everywhere dont show their displeasure at being taken for pillocks by BMW (Big Mean W*****s), then this country will get what it deserves, nothing but cars, concrete, flytipping pollution and obesity , I aint gonna live forever, but the generations coming up behind us will be judging us.
There are millions of cars to choose from, let em know your gonna buy a different make.

 

[PeterNatt]

This is a copy of a letter that I wrote last week to the chief executive of BMW Great Britain:

Mr Jim O'Donnell,
Chief Executive,
BMW UK Ltd Ellesfield Avenue,
Bracknell
Berkshire
RG12 8TA

28 October 2007

Dear Mr O’Donnell

I am writing to you because you have the ultimate responsibility for the activities of BMW in Great Britain.

I wish to voice my displeasure of the involvement of BMW in the recent Magistrates Court case, which resulted in the closure of Bridleway 75/Roman Way that crosses your Cowley Works in Oxfordshire.

I kept a horse in London for many years so I am aware of the advantages that these inner city off road routes provide as a safe refuge for horse riders to exercise their horses through inner city and urban areas.

I am disgusted that you as an organisation with a worldwide reputation for the building of quality motor vehicles should have taken this action, which has resulted in the exclusion of horse riders from using a safe off road route and forced them onto busy roads. In this case a dual carriageway.

There are over four million horse riders in Great Britain and the horse riding industry is the second largest land based industry in Great Britain. Horse riding is a sport that is carried out by children as young as 3 years old to people in their late 70’s. Horse riding has proved to be a sport, which both physically and mentally disabled children and adults as well as those with behavioural problems and those from disadvantaged backgrounds can participate in. Horse riding is an activity, which is carried out in inner city, urban and rural areas, however the horses themselves need to be exercised on a daily basis to maintain their physical and mental health and fitness.

In BMW’s home country of Germany both the cities of Dresden and Berlin are working to promote leisure riding in inner city areas so I am even more surprised at the action you have taken.

No doubt there are many horse riders that are customers of yours and have to date been very pleased with the BMW’s that they drive.

Being in the motoring industry you will also no doubt be aware of the number of horse related traffic accidents, which occur each year and you would wish to reduce this number as horses and motorised vehicles do not mix well in this day and age on the busy roads of this country.

I am concerned that the two charities (Ramblers Association and British Horse Society) now face having to pay your costs merely because they acted to defend the interests of their memberships.

I am told that immediately after the court case you instructed your site security guards to stop any horse riders from using the existing route and I find that this was a particularly vindictive and petty minded thing to do to vulnerable road users.

An organisation of your size could at the very least have afforded to provide a safe alternative route of Bridleway Status so that horse riders could have used the new route, which has only been provided for walkers and cyclists.

BMW should not be seen as an anti-horse riding organisation as it clearly will not do its image any good.

I would therefore suggest that as a gesture of good will and to redeem your organisation from the potential damage it will cause itself over this issue that you should provide a new safe route of Bridleway status, waiver the costs against the Ramblers Association and British Horse Society, pay the legal and administrative costs of the Ramblers Associations and British Horse Society in having to act on behalf of their members in regards to this case, and make a substantial charitable donation to each of the Ramblers Association and The British Horse Society which should be ring fenced so that it is utilized for off road access work.

This action will send a clear message to your current and potential customers that you recognise the errors of your ways and of course will be only a small price to pay for an organisation of your size to preserve the reputation of your brand name.

I hope that BMW will take immediate action over this matter which will overturn the injustice to horse riders

I trust that you will have the courtesy to reply to my letter within the next fourteen days and I look forward to be hearing from you that there will be a positive mutually advantageous outcome to this most unfortunate matter.

Yours sincerely





Peter J Natt

as yet I have not received a reply from him however Tuesday's protest is about the collusion between Oxfordshire County Council and BMW in deleting this bridleway and forcing horse riders to ride on busy roads.

 

[pottamus]

Hello Pedantic...fancy meeting you here! Welshbuzz here.
There is a fair bit of useful information on this on www.bridleways.co.uk too if anyone wants to read the latest happenings.

 

[carthorse]

If it has been ridden on then it is a terrible thing, the BHS were brilliant when there was a threat to ours but that was only a farmer wanting to get rid, big businesses try to hold us to ransom.
Jaguar cars had a new road built through green belt and then left Coventry still there is a nice road for them to speed along and it could go into a nice housing estate.
THEY ARE ALL AS BAD AS ONE ANOTHER

 

[madmav]

I really wish you luck with this campaign. Losing this legal right of way sets the most terrifying precedent. Most of Britain will end up as urban sprawl within a couple of generations if we let the politicians and big businesses get away with it.

 

[Troth]

Thanks everyone for your support. I was the main witness for the BHS at the court case, and am deeply sorry that we lost - not least because now we have an even more fragmented bridleway network in Oxfordshire. And of course we can no longer access a beautiful place to ride - Shotover Country Park which is owned by Oxford City - and which has designated bridleways to ride on.
We do feel rather beaten down by the court case in which we were interrogated for hours about the legality or otherwise of the route we used just to get to the bridleway. The BMW barrister went on and on, even about a route we do not use any more - yet the judge never once suggested he shut up!
We are going to be outside Oxon CC's County Hall, New Road, Oxford next Tuesday 6th November from 9.30am with two horses, ahead of the full Council meeting at which I'll 'Ask a Question' as they put it - basically saying how could the County Council, having failedl to protect a public right of way, then clobber two charities for the costs (BHS and Ramblers) etc.
We need to keep up the pressure because no doubt in other counties, developers and others are poised to do exactly this kind of thing - and most Councils will go along with it. Horse riders are too quiet! We must make more of ourselve - use the roads (with hi-vis of course) - write to Councils, don't take things lying down etc!

 

[PeterNatt]

If proof were needed that England's bridle paths need to be protected, please click on the link below. The lovely Swiss Long Rider, Jessica Bigler, has been forced to end her travels round Britain and Ireland and continue her ride in France. "All the bridleways are closed or overgrown, everything is fenced, private, mainly I have to walk on tarmac roads . . . I am returning to France, where everything is open and easier to travel with a horse!"

http://www.thelongridersguild.com/bigler.htm#new

How shaming for Britain!

 

[PeterNatt]

Up

 

[PeterNatt]

The protest is tommorow morning and we need the support from as many people as possible so as to demonstrate our concern about the way that horse riders have been treated by Oxfordshire County Council and BMW.

 

[Troth]

Even if you cannot attend, PLEASE WRITE TO THE LEADER OF OXON CC, KEITH MITHCELL ON
keith.mitchell@oxfordshire.gov.uk
with some thing along these lines:
To: Leader of Oxfordshire County Council

Dear Keith Mitchell

OCC/BMW Application to close BR75/Roman Way

As you know, the judgement found in favour of OCC's application with
BMW to close BR75/Roman Way.
Firstly, we are very upset that OCC took this application to court.
OCC should be defending rights of way and public access, not assisting
in their demise.
Secondly, and the purpose of this correspondence, we were appalled
that OCC pressed costs (amounting to £66,000; reduced to £49,500 by
the judge) against the British Horse Society and the Ramblers
Association - two charities - who were protecting and defending the
public interest by resisting the closure of a right of way.
In our view, the County Council should be ashamed of its actions in
pursuing costs against two charities, and this is something that we
will be publicising because we feel that the people of Oxfordshire
should be aware of the County Council's action in this regard.
What it all means is that ordinary people - such as volunteers who
work for charities - will no longer dare to exercise their democratic
rights because they are too fearful of the consequences.
At the very least, OCC should withdraw the demand for costs.

adapt as you wish - THANK YOU

 

[BridlewaysRule]

I will be writing to OCC from here in Thailand where I have been following the story with interest.

They had better not reply back to ME with one of the sarcastic, dismissive responses which letter-writers from Newcastle and Cheltenham have had the doubtful pleasure of receiving, or I will be very tempted to print it out, use it for toilet paper and post it back to them.

They would get much further with a reasoned approach and courteous responses. Methinks they have been found on the back foot by the unexpected vehemence of the reaction in some quarters ...

They forget that the world is now a global village and a rider in the UK can plan to ride the Bicentennial National Trail in Australia, just as a woman presently in Thailand can plan to ride the four corners of Great Britain. Should I include Oxford in my route planning?

 

[PeterNatt]

You may be interested in the Article I came across in Finance Week in May 2007.

BMW believes that companies assume responsibility for their economic success as well as for the environment and society. Only companies that take account of the interests of people and the needs of the environment, i.e. that operate sustainably, can achieve long-term economic success. For the BMW Group, sustainability management means using resources efficiently and sparingly, recognising and minimising risks, acting in a socially responsible way and thus enhancing the company’s reputation.
Angela Stangroom, group communications manager at BMW UK Ltd.

 

[BridlewaysRule]

Peter, there are some interesting pages on BMW UK's site:
Sustainability

Clean energy

Environmental responsibility

Each page has an introduction and a full report which can be downloaded. I am off to the dental clinic again so will be unable to do more with it for a couple of days, but someone might find something of interest there.

They also need to remember that there is something called Historical responsibility. However they clearly wouldn't recognise that if it hit them on the head with a bargepole.

An essential part of a 2,000 year old trade route extinguished in a matter of months! Do we demolish Roman villas because they are not fit for human habitation? Do we demolish anglo-saxon churches because attendance has fallen? Of course not! And neither should an ancient trade route be extinguished in such an off-hand and irresponsible way.

 

[Troth]

I thought I had posted this but cannot find it. It was in a topic about various things to do with the bridleway (now closed) to Shotover and in response to some comments that I noticed:
As someone who has been deeply involved in this campaign from the start, and who had to put up with five hours of intensive questioning in court from BMW's barrister I'd like to add a few comments.
1) We did not know about the bridleway (I had only recently acquired a horse) until Mar/April 2006, when we were told about it by Oxford City's Countryside Service who suggested we use it to get to Shotover.
2) We then learned it was under an application for closure. So of
course we rode it! What should we have done? Not ridden it at all? You can bet they would then really have gone to town on the 'No-one rides BR75/Roman Way' theme. So we were damned if we rode it and certainly damned if we did not, weren't we. Even if we had known about it previously, there is no pressure to force someone to ride somewhere.
This does not mean people should lose rights of way. Do you use your car everyday? Or go in the garden even when it is cold and wet?
Probably not - but you want the right to do both those things because they belong to you; you don't want someone to take them away from you.
3) The bridleway is just fine - I have plenty of photos that show it in a much better light than the one here [there was a picture in the other message string that I cannot locate]. In spring and summer much of is has lovely wild flowers, for example. More to the point, it is fairly short and SAFE. And, as someone points out above, it was our ACCESS to a beautiful riding area.
[Sorry, don't know how to put pics here]
4) Surely other riders who may not be in possession of all the facts should think twice about criticising others for trying to keep open our rights of way. This was Oxford - it could be your patch next time.
5) I fully agree with all the points above about urban riding, and
> riding on roads. In an H&H survey dated 26 July 2007 p 7 It asked 'How often do you ride on public roads?' and the answers was that 28% did so 2-3 times a week; 25% did 4-6 times a week; 15% did so every day and 10% once a week. That adds up to a huge amount of road use. We all need to use roads (unless incredibly fortunate) and it is our right to do so. We need to be there and be seen (yes, in hi-viz!) and claim our
rightful space.
6) Somewhere else on this site I believe our riders were criticised for not looking smart enough outside County Hall (on Tues Nov 6th). I can hardly believe someone would take the time to criticise about that! We are very ordinary riders with very ordinary horses (although mine used to be an
eventer in her palmy days with a previous owner). We do not compete, we go for rides and enjoy ourselves. We don't have a lot of money, and all of us have worked really hard to defend our right of way and now, having lost it, to try and keep the issues of access in the public eye to broaden the debate. That day, we were getting the horses ready at 7.30am, taking time off work, riding through rush-hour traffic to get to County Hall where Mark Weston, Graham Cory and Oliver Weston of the
BHS were very pleased to see us.

 

[PeterNatt]

Cna you give me a link to the site?