CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
Good piece by Michael Gray about Duke of Buccleuch and the Cayman Islands firm used to control and sell land.
"Last week the estate announced plans to block access to Dalkeith Country Park in the evenings unless walkers and cyclists paid for access."
Also another piece by Andy Wightman "On the trail of Pentland Ltd".
http://www.thenational.scot/news/revealed-the-duke-of-buccleuch-and-the-offshore-haven.15073
good piece in the Herald as well
http://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/14341192.Aiming_for_an_outdoors_free_from_vandalism/
being in it every day myself I find the majority of the people opposing this entrance fee have never been in it in their life
Without saying anything about its contents, that's a letter from Scottish Land & Estates, the Scottish landowner's lobbying group of which Buccleuch is the "largest" member, so not quite a neutral observer. It's possible the officer who wrote it has never been there either - at least in a personal capacity.
The link with the Loch Lomond camping ban is a bit disingenuous too - most of the benefits came from a police crackdown on all crime after the ban came in, rather than directly from the ban itself. If the accepted solution to abuse of access rights by some becomes removing them from everyone, we'll eventually end up with none at all - a situation SL&E would be very happy with.
This tale may not be entirely unconnected with this one;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-35812939
It'll be interesting to see if Mr Richard Scott can find any political allies.
It's worth noting that when the papers say "the Duke of Buccleuch owns xxx estate", what they actually mean is he doesn't.
There's a company called Buccleuch Estates Ltd (of which the Duke, Richard Scott, is a director) which holds all of the Buccleuch clan's business interests, including landed estates.
The share capital of Buccleuch Estates Ltd (I think Andy Wightman found out it amounted to a grand total of £4). is entirely owned by two holding companies - not the Buccleuchs. These holding companies are in turn owned by nominees though n intricate web of companies that ultimately stop with a lot of Edinburgh-based solicitors. But the solicitors don't technically own the estates either, as they are nominees and therefore act on behalf of their clients. Whom they are legally entitled to keep a secret.
So it's perfectly legal for the Buccleuchs to act as laird of the manner over their estates without ever actually technically owning them. This is particularly tax efficient if you're faced with the sort of enormous inheritance tax obligations which long ago broke up the majority of the landed families empires.
Anyway, in case I've summarised or paraphrased it wrong, Andy's excellent blog on the subject is here; http://www.andywightman.com/archives/4454
It'll be interesting to see if Mr Richard Scott can find any political allies.
I'm sure at least Jamie Mcgrigor MSP is on his side. Sorry, did I say Jamie Mcgrigor? I meant Sir James Angus Rhoderick Neil McGrigor, 6th Baronet of Campden Hill in the County of Middlesex.
I've been trying to figure out who owns the land under this bike ride as a side line. Some of it is easy, some I think I may have to pay Andy Wightman for (he runs a small business doing this and doubtless already has the shooting estates figured out.)
It did occur to me that any gamekeepers and estate workers pulling the 'gerroffofmoiland' thing (yes, it does still happen) might usefully be asked if they're quite sure that they are the landowner's agent and if so how do they know.
IWRATS - that ride looks amazing. Has anyone done it? Do you need a mountain bike? How many days?
@edd1e_h
I can't find any online reference to anyone having done it as a single journey. The individual sections are all known to be possible on a mountain or trail bike if you're willing to push for about 10km in total on three of the watersheds and to get your feet wet on a frequent basis.
Based on experience of the Fort William to St Cyrus C2C I estimate five days hauling camping kit and rations and taking time to smell the bog myrtle and salute the Taigh-nam-Bodach and Sueno's Stone en route. I think a fit rider using B&Bs could do it in three days.
Penciled in for July.
Thanks IWRATS. I'd love to do that run sometime.
BTW, if I were the Duke, I would have kept quiet and left the access arrangements as they were.
All that has done now is draw attention to: him not paying inheritance tax (via the Cayman Islands); the opaqueness & obfuscation of who owns the land; and bolster support for the land reform proposals.
I find the majority of the people opposing this entrance fee have never been in it in their life
I think this is being seen as something of a test case, with Buccleuch Estates testing the water to see what it can get away with. So I think it matters greatly to all persons interested in outdoor access and land reform, not just regular users of the park.
If Buccluech can get away with enclosure and charging entry, I think we'd find quite a lot of other estates coming out of the woodwork and trying similar if they thought they could get away with it (or the costs to their opponents in preventing it was unreasonably high).
There are plenty of estates across the country who are acting well outside the spirit (and in cases the letter) of the act with fencebuilding and padlocked gates for various spurious reasons of stock/pest control, public safety etc. If they think they can get away with it, they'll do it.
"I meant Sir James Angus Rhoderick Neil McGrigor, 6th Baronet of Campden Hill in the County of Middlesex."
Also related on the maternal side to Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, I'll have you know.
Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall
That's the Duchess of Rothesay to you and me. I took some small grain of pleasure correcting the local sycophantic press on twitter who were getting so excited about the visit of the Countess of Strathearn to Edinburgh that they kept referring to her as the Duchess of Cambridge.
@edd1e_h
And big up to our own Dr Afternoon who did the map and suggested the Ryvoan-Abernethy section.
I am not a mountain biker, but Ryvoan-Abernethy is the only bit of that bike ride that I've done :) (The other direction).
Happy memories of pushing my bike down a hill path which had turned into a raging torrent after some downpour, and being very grateful for my Sealskinz socks...
At least I had my mountain bike that year - the previous year I'd done it on my Hybrid, after the reassurances of the ride organiser that "mountain biking this is not". Hah.
@LivD
Hybrids can go over almost any path if you take the mudguards off, put chunky tyres on and trust them.
Best thing for rivers is to carry a pair of lightweight sandals. My mate uses flip-flops from a hotel in the Maldives, but he'll regret that one day.
I am not a mountain biker, but Ryvoan-Abernethy is the only bit of that bike ride that I've done :) (The other direction).
I worked in Abernethy Forest one summer and managed to get my Spokes of St. Andrews own-branded suspension-less MTBSO up to Ryvoan. The bike eventually shook itself to pieces on the forest tracks, there's still a Blackburn rack in fairly good nick somewhere just off the back road through the woods from Forest Lodge to Nethy Bridge.
Indeed. Sections of the Ryvoan path are very bouldery. I've done almost all the rest of the Cairngorms bit of that route and I would tackle any of it on a CX or hybrid, but not the Ryvoan path.
There was a lot of erosion this winter in the Cairngorms and new river channels should not be unexpected. +1 for Tevas or other quick-draining waterproof sandals.
Had a bit of an issue in Dalkeith Estate when we found the gate (more correctly, palisade) at the east gate near Whitehill was locked. Bit of a struggle to get over with kids and bikest. This was before 7:00pm, much earlier than advertised.
It was locked a couple of Sundays ago when I was there about 1pm. I get the impression that the horsey people from the 2 stables don't like anyone else to have access at all. Evidence their signs they have scattered around trying to restrict footpaths and trails to "Horse riders only".
@urchaidh: Which gate is that? I thought at first you meant the one at Smeaton but that is a much more ornamental structure, nothing like the intimidating barrier in your picture. (The cedar visible over the 'palisade' in the background of your photo does seem to match that in the Streetview capture pic of the Smeaton gate though, so maybe it is nearby.)
I drove past the Smeaton gate about 4pm on Tuesday last week and it was wide open. But as that doesn't seem to be the gate that you're asking about, that's probably no help at all...
@cyclops: I get the impression that the horsey people from the 2 stables don't like anyone else to have access at all. Evidence their signs they have scattered around trying to restrict footpaths and trails to "Horse riders only".
I wonder if this is anything to do with the (IMO) rather dubious argument that the estate deploys to control access to the country park:
"A small percentage of the value of your purchase from the Park, Fort Douglas or Restoration Yard will count as payment for access to Dalkeith Country Park and will help to meet the cost of maintaining the Park.
...
The charge is a legal requirement and ensures we continue to comply with the Land Reform Act 2003. By charging a small access charge, we retain the right to close the Park gates, allowing us to make sure we keep the Park safe for all visitors and its residents."
The fact that a significant proportion of visitors don't spend any money at all while visiting the park would seem to me to undermine this argument somewhat. But then IANAL.
If they operate on the basis that [not] charging gives them the right to close the gates then they probably believe that it also gives them the right to control which paths and tracks are used for what.
We went to the country park a couple of weeks back and found that the bridge at the Meeting of the Waters was closed. I think that's to do with the work that ?Babcock? is currently carrying out on the overhead power lines all round the bypass, but there was nothing stating that explicitly when we got to the bridge (and no advanced warning on the approach paths, or anywhere else in the estate, or on their web site) which I think was unhelpful. I'm not sure whether, if the right of responsible access did apply they would have needed to submit a formal notice of temporary closure of the route in such circumstances, but given the lack of helpful signage on site I doubt that any formal notification was made in this instance.
Although we do enjoy an occasional visit to the country park, I always have the feeling that we're there more on sufferance than by right. I find it gives the whole place a much less welcoming atmosphere than, for example, the Penicuik House estate. (I e-mailed Penicuik House as the lockdown was starting to lift, asking whether their car park was open yet, and got a very nice replying saying yes it was, thanking us for staying away while it wasn't [unlike the unhelpful folks who parked up the verges up and down the road] and generally making me feel that we would be very welcome to start visiting again. Which we have.)
@ejstubbs I believe the bridge at Meetings of the Waters was closed when they closed Old Wood walk back in the winter. It's definitely been shut for months. Old Wood is a SSSI which has erosion problems around the base of the old oaks, in part caused by people walking there. However, Old Wood is open again so don't know why the bridge is still shut. If my past experiences are anything to go by, any attempt to contact Dalkeith Country Park is met with a stony silence.
The gate that was locked is next to The Smeaton Gate, about 30m inside, past the gatehouse.
I've not had any issue with the horsey people. We often come in though the gate at Monktonhall which is a locked 'standard' farm gate. It's easy to climb over but the comings and goings of the horsey people in cars, who know the code, means that there's a good chance of someone coming or going at the same time and they've always seemed happy to wave us through with a smile when they open the gate.
Their 'access charge' is indeed very dubious.
Nah. Dicky has jumped the shark there. Entry has to be conditional on payment for 90 or more days each year to secure a Section6(f) exemption.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2003/2/section/6
He could claim the whole thing to be his private garden but he doesn't even live there.
@Cyclops: The bridge was open when we were there on New Year's Eve. The other week was our first visit since then: as you say, the Old Wood was open but the bridge was still closed.
@urchaidh: The gate that was locked is next to The Smeaton Gate, about 30m inside, past the gatehouse.
Gotcha. After posting I did spot it on the OS map and then Google's satellite view. I suppose they have that second gate to keep the hoi polloi out while allowing residents, and users of the stables, to come and go without having to negotiate a gate. (I wondered if it might be possible to gain access by following the ungated road round past the houses but from the OS map it looks like there's a gate beyond the houses, before the turnoff for Smeaton Bridge, as well.)
@IWRATS: He could claim the whole thing to be his private garden but he doesn't even live there.
I was somewhat surprised how close people were to the house when we were there last - picnicing on the front lawn and right next to the north wing. If no-one lives there then it's less surprising, I suppose.
Mind you, claiming the land beyond the A68 as private garden might be pushing it a bit.
He owns the A68 too
You must log in to post.
Cycling in Edinburgh Flickr group
Video embedded using Easy Video Embed plugin
posts