New Forestry Commission Agreement

[orient]

Does anyobne know if this has been signed yet?

We've recently approached the FC asking what they're going to charge for our upcoming event and they stated that the charges will be as per the new agreement of two weeks ago. £75 for the 1st 50 competitors then for the 51st onwards the charge will be £3.00 per competitor (no reduction for juniors). Looks like we're going to have to increase the entry fees.

[Wayward-O]

Sign up to the "Save our Forests" petition here:

http://www.38degrees.org.uk/save-our-forests-petition

[martyn]

Does anyobne know if this has been signed yet?

Just come back from the latest BritO roadshow in Leeds, at which Mike Hamilton said that the FC agreement had NOT been signed, and the Board had yet to make a decision whether it was going to or not.

[orient]

Does anyobne know if this has been signed yet?

Just come back from the latest BritO roadshow in Leeds, at which Mike Hamilton said that the FC agreement had NOT been signed, and the Board had yet to make a decision whether it was going to or not.

Looks like the FC have decided to unilaterally impose the agreement anyway, doesn't appear to matter that it hasn't been signed yet

They also stated that as it is a national agreement, there is no way they can negotiate a local agreement with us

[Clive Coles]

Yes ~ we have today been informed by FC East of England Forest District that there will be no local agreements. The new Forestry Commission Agreement is being enforced with immediate effect. Obviously doesn't matter if it is signed or not.

SUFFOC are reviewing the consequences of this enforcement and will make a decision regarding entry fees for their event at East Harling on 7th November after this coming weekend.

Cann't say I am surprised by the FC action. Miserable times

[Red Adder]

What p*sses me really big time is that we initially booked the event over a year ago and thought that the old fees for this event at least woould apply. There have been notes elsewhere that this is what should happen. They delayed issuing the permit until after the date when they instituted the new fees and then seemed to become unavailable when I tryed on several occassions to contact them for clarification. I consider this all to be very sharp practice.

[EddieH]

Well I strongly recommend that the next time you book an event with these fees, that should FC trash the forest between the permit issue and the event, that the club produces a proper invoice for the FC covering their realistic charges for all the work required in replanning (at at least £40 per hour), controlling etc. And back it up with a lawyer's letterparticularly if you have a friendly one in the region.

[King Penguin]

The big unanswerable question re. the petition (at least without the benefit of a crystal ball) is whether we would be better or worse off negotiating with private landowners. I guess it will vary from landowner to landowner.
It will certainly be harder if an event area is split between multiple different landowners, as I have recently discovered. We have one bit which has been resold since the last event and thus far we can't even confirm who the new owner is, let alone contact them.

[Red Adder]

My experience with government bodies may actually throw private landowners in a good light (one of ours does not charge-yet, another a flat £1 a head, including juniors).

FC are currently putting up fees by 1000% a week before an event that was pencilled in 2 year ago and booked a year ago. We have one authority wanting to charge £ 50 for a mini-park event (to not vet our risk assessment) and another initially turned down an application to map, then encouraged it and at the last minute (after the area had been mapped and the event nearly finalised), unilaterally withdrew permission.

I've been thinking about a new model - ultra informal, control free, non-comp mini O. In most of the areas where we have problems it is perfectly legal to go where you like on foot - either walking or running. How about just designing a course on an O map for " a few friends" , arrange a meeting date/time and then just set them off to do their best. They get their exercise and fix of hunting down "controls" with the added interest of discussing afterwards where the marker actually should have been. For say £1-2 to buy the map from you all costs would be covered.

[graeme]

If forests are sold off (raising loads of cash for the govt), then a sop of free public access (costing the govt nowt) would be worth pushing for. We're then in the game of ensuring that orienteering is one of the things which gets free access, something which SOA eventually achieved after a lot of patient lobbying and hard work.

It's certainly worth looking at how the right of access in Scotland came about.

The main problem with private landowners is in finding out who they are: most are just middle class people who typically love the outdoors. They can still block access, but the key is that it involves work for them to find a reason: the easy life option for a landowner is just to say "yes".

(declared conflict of interest: I have received research funding from the FC. But I'd still say that this petition's premise of the FC as a great custodian of our ancient forests is, um, debateable.)

[Scott]

The Forestry Commission has already dedicated 69% of its land in England as access land under the CROW Act, and this status will remain if the land is sold off.

I suspect if the government is persuaded to include a public-access sop on the sold-off land it will also be in the form of dedication under CROW (so there are no extra administration costs), which will more than satisfy the vast majority of the population but be of no help to people wanting to organise orienteering events. And it seems pretty unlikely that we will get the terms of CROW changed on the back of this.

[MIE]

To add to the "agreement" our local office is indicating that an
initial invoice will be raised for the non-refundable booking fee
PLUS the estimated attendance and this needs to be paid before the
event AND none of it is refundable if we fail to get to the estimated
attendance, although they will raise a second invoice if we exceed the
estimate.

Unfortunately I made and gave them an honest estimate, now I
hope we get to it. Don't know whether to or Oh joy .

[andypat]

Have you spoken to anyone with a legal background?
That sounds like a signficant change to your original agreement which should surely offer you a get out if you wanted?

[Clive Coles]

MIE

Would be useful to know which part of the FC organisation you are having this trouble with. Would help to build a picture to see if different Forest Districts are being more unsympathetic than others.

I know from emails received yesterday evening , Mike Hamilton is in a very active dialog with FC at the moment trying to "negotiate" some concessions ~ he is expecting another conversation on monday. Any feedback to him would I am sure be welcomed.

[Red Adder]

MIE - surely the easiest way to deal with this is to pointedly predict 76 entries - that way you don't risk overpayment and also cause FC the bother of raising a second invoice - but don't chase it as they may forget anyway.