Green lane policy
The National Park Management Plan outlines the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority’s aspirations in relation to the management of green lanes as follows:
AR2. Identify the most appropriate measures to manage the use of motorised recreational vehicles on each sensitive ‘Green Lane’, and put all such measures in place by 2011.
The thematic strategy ‘An Integrated Access Strategy for the Yorkshire Dales National Park’ (2005) contains the broad policies that relate to this. You can download a copy from our document library by clicking on the link below:
These are:
AS3 Safeguard the National Park from overall or irreversible damage through inappropriate activity and minimise conflict between different users:
(a) Use existing legislation and guidance to limit inappropriate activity in the National Park, including supporting and encouraging the police authority in controlling illegal and anti-social use.
(b) Work with the county councils and users to explore, identify and implement appropriate management of green lanes on a regional basis.
(c) Work with landowners, farmers, users and user groups to try and resolve any actual or potential conflict through positive visitor management.
AS4 Maintain the quality, diversity and scope of the National Park’s recreational assets:
Consider each recreational activity in terms of where it should take place, in what volume and at what time. It must be recognised, though, that in many situations we have no legal means of control and so can only do so through education and encouraging users’ voluntary restraint.
Use of recreational motor vehicles is seen as an ‘inappropriate’ activity by the National Park Authority. This means that it needs to be managed to minimise its impact in line with the Government’s response to the Edwards' Report (Review of National Park Authorities. 1991) which states (para 4.2):
‘The Government believes that cooperation is the best means of encouraging sensitive uses of the national parks. Nonetheless, it is clear that those experiences which are unique to the Parks – and which are largely related to the quiet enjoyment of those areas – should be protected and fostered. New recreational activities which threaten those qualities are inappropriate. The question of existing activities, some of which support long-established businesses, has to be examined on an individual basis.'
This approach is reinforced in the current National Park Circular 12/96 which also states that:
“... the Government does not accept that particular activities should be excluded from throughout the Parks as a matter of principle”.
It is not the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority’s policy to ban, as a matter of principle, a legitimate activity on some unsealed routes in the National Park. Information about which routes have recognised public rights for mechanically propelled vehicles is available in the following document:
- Byways Open to All Traffic (opens Document Library)
Our approach is to take an evidence-based approach - looking at each route with possible or proven public rights for mechanically propelled vehicles, assessing its use and sensitivity and identifying suitable management, on a case by case basis.
For more information about this approach and our overall framework for managing green lanes, please visit our Green lane management framework page.
