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We are really pleased that the Peak District National Park Authority has just announced that two of the key routes we identified as part of our Take Back the Tracks campaign are being prioritized for restrictions.

The Park Authority is consulting about whether there should be traffice restrictions placed on Long Causeway (between Bamford and Sheffield) and Roych Clough (near Chapel-en-le-Frith).

The  National Park Authority has written to statutory bodies and recreational user groups – including us – to get our views during a 28-day consultation. We think there is strong evidence that motorized use is unsustainable and detracts from most user groups’ enjoyment of the National Park. So we’ll definitely be urging these routes are closed to stop further damage and disturbance.

Once all the relevant bodies have been consulted members of the National Park Authority’s audit, resources and performance committee will consider the issue on 20 July.If they decide some sort of restriction should be considered a proposal and draft order will be prepared. A public consultation will then be held to get the views of individual members of the public during the autumn.The current consultation is potentially the first stage of a lengthy legal process.

We’ve been lobbying the National Park Authority and Derbyshire County Council to do more to protect our most sensitive green lanes as part of our Take Back the Tracks campaign – and this work is part of the National Park Authority’s recently agreed policy that sets out on managing the use of green lanes by recreational vehicles. The plan focuses on managing 24 priority routes used by recreational vehicles in the Derbyshire part of the national park. Sixteen of these routes have action plans with proposals for their future management. You can see these at www.peakdistrict.gov.uk/priorityroutes

The authority is currently spending an extra £100,000 over two years to deliver the improvements contained in these action plans, tackle illegal use of the countryside by vehicles and improve communications to all users about the issues of managing green lanes.