Picture of Demonstration outside Oxfordshire County Council

P

PeterNatt

Well-Known Member
Joined
15 July 2003
Messages
4,719
Location
London and Hertfordshire
s68.photobucket.com
This is a picture of the demonstration outside Oxfordshire County Council today about the closure by BMW and Oxfordshire County Council of a Bridleway which crossed the BMW Cowly Plant just South of Oxford.

A diverted route alongside a dual carridgeway will be provided for walkers and cycclists but no provision has been made for horses.

The BHS and Ramblers Association tried to defend the closure of the bridleway but had costs against them of £30,000 against the BHS awarded to BMW.

[Image]http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i20/Peter18510/Oxford005.jpg[image]
 
Oxford005.jpg
 
good on you, BUT WHY O WHY can't folks buy hairnets! they look like they been dragged though a hedge backwards IMO!!

and i know it's all about the loss of 'the right of way', BUT now days image is so important!
 
I keep reading about this and can't believe the judgement, it is so wrong. Makes you feel helpless. I thought a right of way was a highway in it's own right. It could happen to any of us in any area and is very worrying.

BMW should be boycotted throughout the land.
 
Sadly this means that a landowner can go to a magistrates court and have a bridleway deleted provided they have the funds to finance a good legal team consisting of solicitors and barristers. If an organisation tries to defend their members then they can have costs awarded against them.

In this case BMW in collusion with Oxfordshire County Council have done just that.

It can take many years to create a new bridleway. I have been working on one for instance that has so far taken 10 years and it looks like another 5 years before we can do it yet a landowner can get it extinguished immediately by a magistrates court.

This is why it is so important that we all appreciate how valuable our bridleways are.

Oxfordshire County Council have been totally vindictive to the horse riders of their county in this case.

If you want to find out more go to www.bridleways.co.uk and read all about it including the comments of the councillors themselves.

This is a total injustice and somehow we need to get it overturned.

Any idears would be most welcome.
 
This is a letter that has been written to one of the councillors that has sent some rather sarcastic responses to horse riders that have taken the effort to write to him:

Thought I'd start a new thread so we can post the letters we've sent and pinch bits from each others without searching in about 6 different threads.

This is the letter I have just sent - I was SO incensed by his RUDENESS.

Mr Mitchell,

I am writing to express my disappointment at the sarcastic tone of your responses to emails sent by acquaintances of mine with reference to the BR75/Roman Way decision.

First of all, I am not a “South American Cowboy” - but I am currently resident in Thailand. Quite possibly I will be referred to by some insulting name in one email or another, or in some private conversation with another councillor. Just make sure it has no racial undertones, given my ethnicity, MISTER Mitchell.

I find it extremely disturbing that a high-ranking representative of the council such as yourself is now sending sarcastic replies to riders who write to you from outside the OCC area. Sarcasm, in any case, is generally acknowledged - unless extremely witty, too - to be the last resort of the desperate, one stage before insults are flung.

I quote :
"I note that you live or work in Cheltenham which is quite a long horse ride to Cowley"

and

“Dear Miss McGinley
I am not sure how often you ride your horse down from Newcastle to Cowley for some exercise.”


Since when, Mr Mitchell, was is considered inappropriate for a person to comment on matters outside their own place of residence?


We do not – yet – have the internal passports common in Russia and China foisted upon us, neither is there any necessity for a propiska or a hukou. Anyone can walk, ride or bounce on a pogo stick all the way from Cheltenham to Newcastle, via Cowley, if they so wish, with no necessity to get ones' propiska or hukou verified. Perhaps I will choose to do so next year in order to prove a point, as part of my planned long ride round the four corners of Britain?


As a British citizen all my life, which I suspect has been at least as long, if not longer than yours, I can only put any assertions of this nature down to your confusion about the role of a local government councillor. It may disappoint you to know that it does not include the administration of either MVD or selsoviet.


Do you, sir, wish to restrict motorcycle riders who reside in, say, Berkshire or Cheshire, from using the roads of Oxfordshire? Do you avoid crossing the council borders when driving for business or pleasure? Would you see fit to deny a hill-walker - residing in Oxford - the opportunity to express his or her opinion on matters of rights of way and access in Llanberis, Keswick or Kendal? You must surely answer “yes” to all three of these rather ridiculous questions, given your attitude to comments from non-Oxford-based horseriders.


Your inaction at protecting routes which have been in place for millenia is now notorious in the international equestrian community. You clearly do not realise that the earth is a village now, and a rider in Oxford may choose to travel on Australia's Bicentennial National Trail, just as a rider from Sydney may choose to ride the Pacific Crest in the US and the American to wander over Britain, map in hand, on the “wonderful” network of bridleways “unique in Europe”.


Unique in Europe certainly. All over Europe, towns and cities are vying with each other to re-instigate old, and construct new, routes for horse riders and carriage drivers. Only in the UK – in the ancient city of Oxford, repository in many minds for all that is most valuable in the history of England – are such routes, extant for millenia, now being extinguished, wiped out like so much chalk on a blackboard.


I quote again from an email of yours sent to an acquaintance of mine:


“Like many riders in this area, we found that a combination of growing traffic on local roads ... meant that riding was increasingly less an enjoyment and more of a nightmare. Eventually, we gave up the unequal struggle ...”


In other words, Mr Mitchell, you are a defeatist. Many things in life are an unequal struggle but we do not give up if we think them worthwhile. For many of us, riding on bridleways is much more than “some exercise”, of which fact you appear to be oblivious.


Many riders have no interest whatsoever in any competitive sport, and may have a very strong aversion to what I will describe as “country sports”. That is their prerogative, as support is yours. My own views have no bearing on the matter. The horse is a means of transport – leisure transport, certainly - and bridleways are its highway system, in use for both local and long-distance travel for millenia – and still in use today.


This interest in the horse as a complex vehicle for leisure journeys, long or short, is a perfectly valid one and it ill behoves you, as the leader of the council, to indulge in insulting sarcasm of this nature at the expense of those who are stating perfectly legitimate concerns, albeit concerns outside their immediate neighbourhood. I find it difficult to believe that you would never have any concerns outside your immediate neighbourhood, and still more difficult to believe that you would not express these concerns in some way.

Granting others the same courtesy to express their concerns, without a sour, sarcastic intervention by you, would be the only action that could be respected.


regards

Calandra Green
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top