[spidermonkey09]

It stands a better chance of working than the current system which is being wilfully ignored by chodes.

[Bradders]

I was thinking similar this morning, there's a venue (albeit a smaller more minor one) in Yorkshire where you have to text or ring the landowner to ask for permission to visit on a specific time / day. It's there for a completely different (and far less noble) reason, as the land is used for shooting, but it seems to work. And doesn't require any website build etc.

I reckon that's the only way to stop the main issue, which as ferret says I'm willing to bet is where more than 6 people turn up and no one is willing to leave and go elsewhere. Appreciate that will involve additional admin effort on Jim's part though, unless someone else volunteered?

[ali k]

there's a venue in Yorkshire where you have to text or ring the landowner to ask for permission to visit on a specific time / day...it seems to work. And doesn't require any website build etc.

Appreciate that will involve additional admin effort on Jim's part though, unless someone else volunteered?

Could another option just be a WhatsApp group (advertised through BMC) where, on the morning they intend to go, climbers have to post their car reg and how many people in the group on a first come first served basis. People would know before they left home whether it's 'full', and also easier for Jim to then challenge any groups that haven't respected the rules if they can't provide a reg number at the crag (would be easy to know who has permission to be there). Also less admin intensive than fielding phone calls all the time.

[Aussiegav]

Sorry. But there’s a strong sense of privilege coming through.
We, as a collective climbers that goes beyond UKB, have taken liberties and felt entitled to do what we wanted. Inspite of very reasonable expectations and efforts of the landowner to support climbing, climbers have now faced the accountability of their actions.

You can suggest all the different apps, social media ideas, and BMC should do this & that. but ultimately it’s the behaviour and mindsets of climbers that need to change.

There’s loads of other examples like Raven Tor parking as noted last week, the ongoing issues at Griffs.

These venues are not where beginners go, it’s climbers who know better.

The idea of ringing up and booking a spot with the landowner, imo, reflects this entitled mindset. Why should he allocate time to meet the needs of climbers and take phone calls. He has his own life to live and what if he’s not there? Is he responsible to set up a contingency plan?? 

Sadly, this is the lesson that needs to be learnt.

I’m gutted I can’t climb there anymore, but Jim has been very patient & accommodating. But we as climbers blew it.

Other spots will go if mentalities & behaviours don’t change.

[Will Hunt]

If people can ignore a sign they can definitely ignore a WhatsApp group or an app.

It would be more effective for people already at the crag to challenge extra people turning up.

[James Malloch]

Sorry. But there’s a strong sense of privilege coming through.
We, as a collective climbers that goes beyond UKB, have taken liberties and felt entitled to do what we wanted. Inspite of very reasonable expectations and efforts of the landowner to support climbing, climbers have now faced the accountability of their actions.

You can suggest all the different apps, social media ideas, and BMC should do this & that. but ultimately it’s the behaviour and mindsets of climbers that need to change.

There’s loads of other examples like Raven Tor parking as noted last week, the ongoing issues at Griffs.

These venues are not where beginners go, it’s climbers who know better.

The idea of ringing up and booking a spot with the landowner, imo, reflects this entitled mindset. Why should he allocate time to meet the needs of climbers and take phone calls. He has his own life to live and what if he’s not there? Is he responsible to set up a contingency plan?? 

Sadly, this is the lesson that needs to be learnt.

I’m gutted I can’t climb there anymore, but Jim has been very patient & accommodating. But we as climbers blew it.

Other spots will go if mentalities & behaviours don’t change.

This was my thinking too. It sounds like a big loss for people, but it’s all down to people not respecting the rules.

It probably won’t make a big difference but things like this will hopefully make people think more about treating access as a privilege rather than a right. And i definitely include myself in that!

[ali k]

If people can ignore a sign they can definitely ignore a WhatsApp group or an app.

Yeh fair point. People are dicks.

[Will Hunt]

To put it less succinctly, there is an expectation nowadays that every problem must have a technological solution. Unless the BMC is going to create a Wright's Rock Robocop to vaporize any rule breakers then this is one of those things which you can't tech your way out of. And you can't just point to some 3rd party (i.e. the BMC) and cry that they didn't do their job.

Everybody has done everything they need to do except the people following the rules. If they won't leave when challenged then ask for their name so that you can let people know who got the access withdrawn.

[Droyd]

I agree with Gav: people who post on this website might consider themselves very distinct from those flouting access bans, but at the end of the day we're all just middle-class ponces in stupid brightly coloured trousers with big rectangles strapped to our backs mumbling nonsense about micro-beta and doing a shit job of maintaining eye contact and fiddling with collections of overpriced toothbrushes. The situation has been bad for a year (two years?) and there have been plenty of instances of people logging on UKC on days/in months when climbing there wasn't allowed, so rather than suggesting an even more complicated approach to access (particularly if it puts even more of the onus on the landowner) we might just need to take this on the chin, reflect on what went wrong, and do what we can to avoid losing access in other places.

Currently the RAD widget on UKC suggests an ambiguous situation so obviously needs to be changed, and I've seen good efforts from people on social media giving updates on the changing access situation, but clearly none of this has been enough. I think that the situation is a bit more nuanced than 'people are dicks' and would assume that at least some of the ban-flouting has been innocent (not looking at UKC and managing to get to the crag without seeing signs - there was some suggestion that only one of the multiple paths had a sign and I wouldn't be surprised if one or more were purposely removed), in which case do we need to get better at arranging and maintaining signage when access is tenuous? Or if not and everyone who has flouted the ban has done so knowingly do we need to crack on with sharpening our pitchforks and, as Will suggests, naming and shaming to really discourage such behaviour?

[ferret]

Agree it wouldn't totally solve the problem but I think would make it less likely to occur. Nobody needs to administrate it should be pretty simple to automate.
Could also give a way to monitor what's going on up there as you now have email/phone contacts for those attending and could survey if the rules users observed the rules being followed while there

[Dingdong]

Agree it wouldn't totally solve the problem but I think would make it less likely to occur. Nobody needs to administrate it should be pretty simple to automate.
Could also give a way to monitor what's going on up there as you now have email/phone contacts for those attending and could survey if the rules users observed the rules being followed while there

Sure this would work if there was 20 climbers in the UK. Good luck getting a thousand people to sign up and use an app/group chat/tech solution.

This was a long time coming and people know the rules at this point considering how long access has been tenuous there. I also agree it’s the responsibility of the community to self regulate and not the land owners job to accommodate us. How much they already have accommodated and then had the piss taken by boulderers? Sad but it’s the consequences of our actions as a community.

[sirlockoff]

we could let capitalism solve it,

could have a 'worker' there overseeing everything at the crag and making sure the rules are followed, also a booking application that charges non-refundable slots (10 each).

the volume should easily generate 800+ pounds for worker,


I don't have much faith in people's ability to follow rules 

[Wellsy]

I suppose the question is; are the people ruining it for everyone blissfully ignorant of the restrictions, or knowingly breaking them? Cos if its the latter there's very little anyone can do by arranging setups like registration etc.

Bloody annoying situation though. Embarrassing tbh.

[sdm]

Sure this would work if there was 20 climbers in the UK. Good luck getting a thousand people to sign up and use an app/group chat/tech solution.

I don't think it needs to be as big a barrier as you think it is. All you need is:

1) A very visible, well worded sign at the entrance and at the car park explaining the situation and including a link and a QR code for the site. It also needs to spell out in clear words what the consequences of non-compliance are.
2) A super basic website. Sign up with a full name and email address.
3) A basic page with with 6 slots available for each am/pm slot or however you want to break down the slots. I think 3 hour windows could work well. If you wanted to be fancy, the slots could adjust with daylight hours so they were shorter in the winter.
4) If you wanted to get really fancy, the sign could include a QR code to sign in and out  of your slot so that your slot can be freed up if you leave early. Repeated no shows could get you blocked from booking a slot for a few weeks to stop people taking the mick.
5) Very visible wording and links to the website from the UKC and RAD pages*.

We all managed to do similar to go visit a wall during covid. To be successful, I think it would need to done via a website that doesn't need an app, or via RGPro (because it already has all of the functionality we would need and because I expect most climbers had to create an account on there during covid anyway).

For the tool to be successful, I think it would need to fall to the climbing community to set it up and manage it (probably via the BMC, not that there should need to be any managing to do once it's set up) and for us to then go to the landowner and propose it as a solution that could allow access to continue while minimising the chance of anyone breaking the access rules.

I agree that whatsapp is a non-starter. Too many people don't have whatsapp and people aren't going to want to join a group chat with hundreds of other people potentially sending them messages.

* At the risk of going off on a tangent, I think UKC logbook pages and the RAD could be a lot clearer when it comes to crags with sensitive access. The access issues aren't prominent enough or easy enough to navigate to, the wording is too often ambiguous or out of date, and UKC/RAD often contradict each other.

[highrepute]

Sure this would work if there was 20 climbers in the UK. Good luck getting a thousand people to sign up and use an app/group chat/tech solution.

I don't think it needs to be as big a barrier as you think it is. All you need is:

1) A very visible, well worded sign at the entrance and at the car park explaining the situation and including a link and a QR code for the site. It also needs to spell out in clear words what the consequences of non-compliance are.
2) A super basic website. Sign up with a full name and email address.
3) A basic page with with 6 slots available for each am/pm slot or however you want to break down the slots. I think 3 hour windows could work well. If you wanted to be fancy, the slots could adjust with daylight hours so they were shorter in the winter.
4) If you wanted to get really fancy, the sign could include a QR code to sign in and out  of your slot so that your slot can be freed up if you leave early. Repeated no shows could get you blocked from booking a slot for a few weeks to stop people taking the mick.
5) Very visible wording and links to the website from the UKC and RAD pages*.

We all managed to do similar to go visit a wall during covid. To be successful, I think it would need to done via a website that doesn't need an app, or via RGPro (because it already has all of the functionality we would need and because I expect most climbers had to create an account on there during covid anyway).

For the tool to be successful, I think it would need to fall to the climbing community to set it up and manage it (probably via the BMC, not that there should need to be any managing to do once it's set up) and for us to then go to the landowner and propose it as a solution that could allow access to continue while minimising the chance of anyone breaking the access rules.

I agree that whatsapp is a non-starter. Too many people don't have whatsapp and people aren't going to want to join a group chat with hundreds of other people potentially sending them messages.

* At the risk of going off on a tangent, I think UKC logbook pages and the RAD could be a lot clearer when it comes to crags with sensitive access. The access issues aren't prominent enough or easy enough to navigate to, the wording is too often ambiguous or out of date, and UKC/RAD often contradict each other.

This sounds great. When do you think you'll be ready to roll it out?

Can you do the same for some other crags with difficult access situations too please.

[remus]

Sure this would work if there was 20 climbers in the UK. Good luck getting a thousand people to sign up and use an app/group chat/tech solution.

I don't think it needs to be as big a barrier as you think it is. All you need is:

1) A very visible, well worded sign at the entrance and at the car park explaining the situation and including a link and a QR code for the site. It also needs to spell out in clear words what the consequences of non-compliance are.
2) A super basic website. Sign up with a full name and email address.
3) A basic page with with 6 slots available for each am/pm slot or however you want to break down the slots. I think 3 hour windows could work well. If you wanted to be fancy, the slots could adjust with daylight hours so they were shorter in the winter.
4) If you wanted to get really fancy, the sign could include a QR code to sign in and out  of your slot so that your slot can be freed up if you leave early. Repeated no shows could get you blocked from booking a slot for a few weeks to stop people taking the mick.
5) Very visible wording and links to the website from the UKC and RAD pages*.

We all managed to do similar to go visit a wall during covid. To be successful, I think it would need to done via a website that doesn't need an app, or via RGPro (because it already has all of the functionality we would need and because I expect most climbers had to create an account on there during covid anyway).

For the tool to be successful, I think it would need to fall to the climbing community to set it up and manage it (probably via the BMC, not that there should need to be any managing to do once it's set up) and for us to then go to the landowner and propose it as a solution that could allow access to continue while minimising the chance of anyone breaking the access rules.

I agree that whatsapp is a non-starter. Too many people don't have whatsapp and people aren't going to want to join a group chat with hundreds of other people potentially sending them messages.

* At the risk of going off on a tangent, I think UKC logbook pages and the RAD could be a lot clearer when it comes to crags with sensitive access. The access issues aren't prominent enough or easy enough to navigate to, the wording is too often ambiguous or out of date, and UKC/RAD often contradict each other.

Having made some little widgets like this I think you're significantly overestimating how motivated people would be to use it. I get the temptation, but as a UKBer you are almost by definition in the top 1% of motivated climbers and care a lot more about access than your average punter, so a nifty little website sounds like a great idea to us. However, we've seen that the majority of climbers don't seem to read simple signage. Adding more steps in to the process without a clear and immediate pay-off will not make those same climbers more engaged.

In my opinion what you'd need is someone who is willing to confront climbers who are not adhering to the access arrangements at the crag, a la Martin Crocker's top working checking people's insurance at cheddar. It seems a pretty thankless task though.

[Dingdong]

Honestly the simplest solution is just ensuring that you and your friends all post regular access updates to social media accounts, specifically Instagram as that’s what most punters use. It would also be very useful if the better known climbers all shared this information but even they don’t bother and then complain when access gets withdrawn. You’re not gonna get people to sign up to a website or app or group chat. You need to disseminate information where the majority of people browse climbing content: Instagram and YouTube. The problem is that 80% of the people on this forum are stuck in 2002 and think posting on Instagram is lame.

Like Remus says, majority of people are just casual punters and may not know/care about access issues as climbing isn’t their entire lives like everyone on here.

[Bradders]

Honestly the simplest solution is just ensuring that you and your friends all post regular access updates to social media accounts, specifically Instagram as that’s what most punters use. It would also be very useful if the better known climbers all shared this information but even they don’t bother and then complain when access gets withdrawn. You’re not gonna get people to sign up to a website or app or group chat. You need to disseminate information where the majority of people browse climbing content: Instagram and YouTube. The problem is that 80% of the people on this forum are stuck in 2002 and think posting on Instagram is lame.

Like Remus says, majority of people are just casual punters and may not know/care about access issues as climbing isn’t their entire lives like everyone on here.

I really don't think there's any need for an aggravating rant like this. How exactly do you think this is going to help?

All anyone's done is offer up options for potential solutions, since we all clearly care about access to these places, and this is relevant since Jim suggested they were still looking for ways to make it work. Throwing insults around is only going to make a bad situation worse frankly.

[Dingdong]

Sorry if it came off as an aggravating rant and insulting but it’s kind of at the point where this discussion has been had numerous times without any real resolution? Just a bit frustrating at how slow the mechanisms move.

Why is it that Jim has now banned access (rightly so may I add) but I haven’t seen either the UKC/RAD updated? Neither have I seen any singular posts from the BMC channels notifying people of access changes, could see people turning up this weekend and climbing on the rocks not realising the ban is already in place, further jeopardising access there in the future.

[sdm]

Honestly the simplest solution is just ensuring that you and your friends all post regular access updates to social media accounts, specifically Instagram as that’s what most punters use. It would also be very useful if the better known climbers all shared this information but even they don’t bother and then complain when access gets withdrawn. You’re not gonna get people to sign up to a website or app or group chat. You need to disseminate information where the majority of people browse climbing content: Instagram and YouTube. The problem is that 80% of the people on this forum are stuck in 2002 and think posting on Instagram is lame.

I don't think Instagram or YouTube will be a major part in any successful solution.

Instagram isn't designed for getting across more than a sentence or 2 of text. Write any more than that, and it gets hidden behind a "read more" link. Most people will scroll on without ever clicking the link.

Most people won't post a video about the access issues at a crag. They'll post about sending their sick new project. Or their crazy new challenge to tick 200 v points in a day or their challenge about a beginner vs a pro climber. Or world's strongest climber crushes churnet's hardest climbs etc etc. Even if they add a brief section to their video about the access issues, how many people are going to be concentrating on that part of the video? People's attention spans on social media are very short and admin like sections at the beginning and end of videos get skipped a lot and get punished by YouTube's algorithm. The accounts that could theoretically have the biggest influence on awareness only maintain that influence by being slaves to the algorithm.

If you do get the message across successfully via social media posts, they'll only be viewed for a few days, before being forgotten when replaced by newer posts in people's feeds.

Clear, attention grabbing, unavoidable signage on the access route to the crag with clear, blunt wording is the only place that you can guarantee all climbers at the crag will see it. I think that's the only way to remove any plausible deniability of knowledge of the access rules and the consequences of breaking them.

I think removal of that plausible deniability is key to trying to persuade/guilt the problem people to behave.

[steveri]

I get the impression that Wright's might be an early destination for people venturing outdoors. I don't know the area well but have got chatting to a couple of people in that category - up from London, strong as anything, straight out of the gym. By that definition they're going to fall into the 'hard to reach' category. Likely not big UKC readers or RAD checkers. Just as likely to be getting 'news' from Instagram, ie looking at random leaves from a tree, rather than reading the wikipedia entry for that tree.

How do you reach the hard to reach?

[spidermonkey09]

How do these people get to the crag, or know where to park without consulting ukc or a guidebook?

They don't; they look at ukc and ignore the access stuff. Theres no excuse.

[Will Hunt]

People don't go on Instagram to think. Quite the opposite, in fact.

[Dingdong]

Guidebooks hardly ever get updated and thus access advice isn’t up to date

RAD and UKC haven’t even been updated to reflect to change in access status at wrights rock.

Instagram is where the majority of people consume climbing content - easiest way to let people know of access changes. I always share access advice and changes on my Instagram stories and people regularly message me about the updates so obviously it works. Yet I don’t see many people from UKB posting on their Instagram about access changes, why is that? Some of you have a lot of followers too yet choose not to post anything. I will give a shout-out to people like Dave Mason and Dave Parry who are usually on the ball and good at calling out bad parking or updating people on nesting of birds etc. but majority of people here don’t bother.

Signposting etc should obviously be a part of it but again that’s low hanging fruit. It’s about educating the more casual climbers about changes.

I personally think wrights rock is a bit of a lost cause and should just let it go and learn from it cause people aren’t going to abide by the rules.

[Offwidth]

Sorry if it came off as an aggravating rant and insulting but it’s kind of at the point where this discussion has been had numerous times without any real resolution? Just a bit frustrating at how slow the mechanisms move.

Why is it that Jim has now banned access (rightly so may I add) but I haven’t seen either the UKC/RAD updated? Neither have I seen any singular posts from the BMC channels notifying people of access changes, could see people turning up this weekend and climbing on the rocks not realising the ban is already in place, further jeopardising access there in the future.

As no one had posted Jim's update on the other channel I did it on Sunday... access is clearly only Friday and weekends only, so the next pressure point is this Friday.

RAD IS the main BMC channel, but expecting one full time access officer to be working on this every hour of every day is unreasonable. If anyone wants to know how the two relevant full time BMC Access officers for England and Wales struggle with time in their roles, despite dedication and expertise, just talk to them: the vast majority of BMC access work is always going to be done by volunteers.

I simply don't 'buy' innocent ignorance being the biggest factor: nearly all these bans and parking clusterfucks come from climbers who should clearly know better, yet from their actions and inactions (especially not checking RAD) don't give a shit. This is fundamentally a community problem and as part of that we simply need to self police better in sensitive venues or risk losing them. RAD and the UKC logbook link and signage help but efforts needs to be wider than that, given way too many climbers don't spend a minute checking RAD (or the logbook links) and sadly signs sometimes get removed.

As a positive aside on access and the BMC,  I'd add that Dave instigated cross England and Wales BMC zoom meetings over a year ago, for leading access volunteers, to better coordinate responses to common access and policy threats and to share good practice. These are working very well in my opinion, communication is better and hopefully this will slightly reduce pressure on staff. Also the one full time BMC Wales policy and access role was recently split into two seperate roles, with one full time on access, and before that Dave moved from CEO into managing Access, Conservation and Sustainability: so BMC staff resources on access are larger than ever. However, Jon must be especially busy being newish in role in a time of ongoing significant organisational change and facing a growing volume of serious access problems.