Calling time on off-roading

The Green Lanes Environmental Action Movement (GLEAM) publishes Calling Time on Off-roading, a detailed report spelling out the public nuisance and environmental damage being done by 4x4s and motorbikes driving off-road on countryside tracks.

The report, illustrated with photographs, also spells out how and why current legislation is failing to protect 6,000 miles of green lanes in England and 1,000 miles in Wales – including in the National Parks and Areas of Outstanding National Beauty and on the National Trails.

GLEAM Chairman, Dr Michael Bartholomew, says:

‘The ancient tracks that thread their way through the countryside are a precious, historic feature of the landscape. Calling Time on Off-roading explains how driving on them for fun with 4x4s and motorbikes is destroying them. It causes public nuisance to residents and to people on foot, horse or cycle, including people who are disabled. It disrupts farming activities. It places heavy burdens on highway authorities and the public purse, and it brings noise, pollution and the depletion of nature into otherwise tranquil, unspoilt areas.

‘The law as it stands is failing to deal with all this damage and nuisance. What is needed is new legislation to bring off-roading to an end –  everywhere’.

Read the full case for ending recreational driving on green lanes by motorbikes, 4x4s and quad bikes.