[spidermonkey09]

 I think that's a pretty good document.

[mrjonathanr]

I am a great supporter of the BMC and a member via 2 different clubs, but that document reads as though the BMC NW committee has total control over what gear gets fixed in place and by whom and climbers must comply with its decisions.

There's an assumption of complete authority 

[shark]

I agree. It reeks of a local Area with an exaggerated sense of its own importance and authority. The BMC is a representative not a governing body. They’ve gone a bit power mad.

[Will Hunt]

It sounds like you see it as The BMC initiating this; my understanding is that local climbers got together via their local BMC meeting to try and come up with a policy (which they're inviting people to vote on) to guide the local ethics.

Why might this need doing, you may ask from the cosy confines of Sheffield, where grit is grit and lime is lime and everyone knows (sort of) what the rules are.
In Lancashire there's a good few classics which are totally reliant on pegs for pro. Many of these pegs are now really shit, even if they don't look it. I did Shivers Arete last year and, despite being a big peg sceptic, I clipped the crucial cemented-in peg with nary a thought. It looked in very good condition. It was pull tested recently and broke at 1.5kn (makes you wonder about all those other routes that are protected by 40 year old kit, eh?). So the locals have ground off the old stub and placed a glue in bolt. I can understand why people would want to preserve a classic E1.
But then there's been loads of new bolts going in at completely daft venues. A friend did a VS from the 80s in some Lancs quarry today and had to avoid clipping the bolts that have been added. Fiend had to avoid some bolts on a route at Egerton I think?
I can see why people wanted to try and curb the actions of a few selfish unilateralists.

[shark]

I’m fine with a policy / positioning statement. I’m not fine with the enforcement aspects proposed.

The Area body is a useful institution where local activists can (if they choose) argue out what is and isn’t acceptable or where an individual might take a sounding on something.

An Area body proposing to act as a governing court over all climbers (whether BMC members or not - not all climbers are in the BMC bubble) is high handed and arrogant. It also has no legitimacy to do so.

[rginns]

It sounds like you see it as The BMC initiating this; my understanding is that local climbers got together via their local BMC meeting to try and come up with a policy (which they're inviting people to vote on) to guide the local ethics.

Why might this need doing, you may ask from the cosy confines of Sheffield, where grit is grit and lime is lime and everyone knows (sort of) what the rules are.
In Lancashire there's a good few classics which are totally reliant on pegs for pro. Many of these pegs are now really shit, even if they don't look it. I did Shivers Arete last year and, despite being a big peg sceptic, I clipped the crucial cemented-in peg with nary a thought. It looked in very good condition. It was pull tested recently and broke at 1.5kn (makes you wonder about all those other routes that are protected by 40 year old kit, eh?). So the locals have ground off the old stub and placed a glue in bolt. I can understand why people would want to preserve a classic E1.
But then there's been loads of new bolts going in at completely daft venues. A friend did a VS from the 80s in some Lancs quarry today and had to avoid clipping the bolts that have been added. Fiend had to avoid some bolts on a route at Egerton I think?
I can see why people wanted to try and curb the actions of a few selfish unilateralists.

Exactly this Will. The bolts you're referring to - if these had been placed on a route in a more established Lancs Honeypot rather than a quarry that has seen little action since the early 80s they would have been chopped in about 5 minutes. 
Bolts have been placed on new as well as established routes in completely inappropriate locations in Lancashire. One example is Mental Mantel (E2) in Egerton which had a bolt put in where there was plenty of gear available on the left, there was a new route above Cherry Bomb which had a bolt put in next to a slot that took gear, etc.
As we work towards the next guide we're coming across more and more of them.
The fixed gear policy has been formulated by locals to provide a mechanism whereby the random bolting can be challenged by consensus rather than one unilateral chopper having to go round rectifying things. It'll hopefully encourage anyone thinking of retro-bolting a route that it may not be accepted by the rest of the climbing community.   
It seems to be a very small number of people (1?) causing these issues. The area body isn't proposing to act as a governing court, but wants to provide a framework for climbers to debate what is acceptable to local activists.
This hasn't come out of the blue, and the context hopefully goes some way to explaining the tone of the document... 

[Fiend]

Yes the new document is lengthy and prescriptive, but it's an attempt to cover all bases, in the absence of "don't be a dick" being as commonly understood as it should be.

Will is actually right about this one. In particular it's worth noting that this document has come about from proposals and feedback by people out there, climbing and caretaking in the Lancs quarries, and not by some faceless entity higher up the BMC - the Area Body is a collection of actual bodies in the area! Further, the document specifically requests a general consultation period with wider groups who have an interest in the area (e.g. LRR - 1700 members). So you could just as well say that anyone responding to that general consultation is actually the governing court (compared to the previous document which relied solely on area meets and bypassed wider consultation!).

Edit: What rick said too.