Looks like Old Sodbury's Sortout at Newbury has been a victim of its own success, traffic problems appear to have made it no longer worthwhile, but there is talk of several smaller more local events instead.
Now if we can only persuade them to have one up this end ( Cheshire ) I can collect on all that free ale I've been promised :-) Derek
Someone I know who knows about such things reckons there be more to this than meets the eye; the County Show *dwarfs* the Sortout traffic-wise. Palms haven't been crossed with the necessary she reckons...
Well, I wouldn't go so far as to imagine that, far more likely that excessive regulation has played its part, and the red tape has gotten too much for the admin staff to be bothered with, as I understand it the admin is mostly part-timers as it's not a big professional show, more like a car boot sale that got out of hand. I know some car boot sales I used to go to in Reading got so big they had to start getting more involved with legislation and some just didn't bother and stopped the boot sales, splitting up into smaller ones like Sodbury are doing. In the email I got from a friendly local traffic cop said it was the regs wot done it, they'd received a letter from the council stating they had to do this and that, and they just didn't think it was worth it.
In a similar vein:
"Health and safety flattens pancake race"
Bah, etc.
Mind you, the local health and safety exec were called by some of the more responsible newspapers and stated that they hadn't been contacted, so far more likely to be an excuse on the part of the cathedral than any actual issue. A lot gets blamed on H&S and the Human Rights Act unjustly. They do mention the road closures, costs and low marshal attendance, you're probably looking at the real reasons right there with H&S just being used as a roll-your-eyes excuse.
Rumour has it that there was an accident last year which may still be "pending resolution" so the local police won't give their okay.
One of the members of the Mud Club are organising a similar event on Easter Sunday. Details can be found at
Sounds like a good rumour.
Doubt the Police have diddley to do with it personally.
Hehe, well, OK that's rumour number 3, I've just had it on good authority that the Old Sod has been replaced by an alien facsimile who will be organising the next meeting on Jupiter!
Who knows, other than "it ain't what it used to be".
Arrgh, bloody feckin' mud club..
On or around Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:11:40 +0000, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:
There's a whole page on the H&S site somewhere which is things that the popular press claim they banned, but in fact, had no input on.
Wossup? LOL
Just about anything they do seems to involve pictures of 20 people spending 4 hours driving in and out of bombholes on Salisbury Plain and then insisting that they never left the right of way and were in a group of 3 max! Not to mention the Dorset members bragging about their pro-RoW credentials and then going very quiet when I post details of lane clearances... We've only ever had one mud-clubber turn up. I don't bother with it any more.
We try our best to police the pictures put on there, as admin we stuck between a rock and a hard place. We do remove a majority of pictures and get slammed as "censors" and much worse, if we leave a few we offend people like us (the admins that is). A lot of work does go on in the background, as I'm sure many people understand - but it only takes a few to kick up and spoil it for the others :(
At the end of the day there's 5000 or so members on there - and we understand we can't keep everyone happy! I see *another* Green Lane access group has popped up, GLAG ...
Yet more division :(
Where I live there are now very few lanes that are open thanks to Northampton Borough Council - and they REFUSE to let us maintain them. I got very disillioned after attending more meetings than was sensible with them, mainly because in the end they did what they wanted and ignored any input from us. I understand that Jim Cosford (the guy that killed our lanes) has moved on to pastures new in Sussex or somewhere - so that area will effectively be covered in "temporary" TRO's shortly. TRO's without maintanance I will add. Pointless.
Never quite sure about all these access groups, I left GLASS as they didn't really seem to be relevant any more, and just concentrate on my local RoW group who do actually do stuff, although even that's scaling down now. It's hard to get volunteers these days, not entirely sure why, although the last clearance was well attended. Maybe this year will be better.
But a plethora of access groups on the one hand can dilute each other but on the other hand can increase visibility I suppose.
Yep, fecking irritating. Of course we live in a democracy so can vote them out, or that's the theory, in real life that's a crock obviously.
Unfortunately, Ian, it's not the elected members of the council that actually make the decisions - I've attended too many county council meetings to be under any illusions on that score :-( - they just rubber stamp what their paid officials tell them they want.
Please don't tar all us mud clubbers with the same brush. I'd love some local lanes to maintain but they were all downgraded to bridleway or footpath during the 20 years that Avon existed as a local authority :-(
Indeed, hence my comment about the idea that we live in a democracy being a crock!
I don't think they're all like that, but I never got the sense that those who gave a shit were represented in any numbers on mud club. There were certainly a few trying to tread the line between urging members not to go on 12 vehicle convoys after wet weather, and being labelled as a bore or a nazi, but when the majority of the members that I saw were only interested in going out and getty muddy then the club just ends up living up to its name.
I'll probably pop back every now and again and post up news about lane clearances when the local group do any (timetable's looking empty at the moment unfortunately), perhaps I'll get some bites this year.
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