UKBouldering.com
the shizzle => get involved: access, environment, BMC => Topic started by: petejh on August 31, 2017, 11:04:14 am
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https://www.thebmc.co.uk/horseshoe-rebolting-project-kicks-off
As somebody well-versed in re-bolting sport crags who I know said, regarding this scheme: ''why is BMC paying a rope access contractor to do work which volunteers in Wales have been and continue to do?''. I agree.
The BMC is sending out a clear message and setting a precedent: that it's acceptable to pay companies for re-bolting work that has always, quite rightly, been carried out voluntarily. For this reason I'm against this idea on principle, because I don't think we should be encouraging the notion that re-equipping poorly bolted sport routes should ever be considered a 'professional' paid-for activity. I'd be in favour of donating if the money was purely to purchase equipment for volunteers to then do the re-equipping.
People re-bolt routes all the time for free - because they enjoy doing it, they get satisfaction from improving their local crags, and satisfaction from knowing others can have a quality experience as a result of their work. Bolted climbs are our resource and we're responsible for looking after them - not someone else. Remember self-sufficiency?
Following on from this, it's obvious that there are plenty of people in the climbing world who are competent to do re-equipping work to a standard that fulfills the BMC's responsibility, as the landowner of Horseshoe, to take 'reasonable' measures to ensure safety.
In the bigger picture the vast majority of British sport crags aren't owned by the BMC - with its associated land management funds to support bolting work - and I fail to see how this scheme will have anything but a negative impact on people's willingness to voluntary re-equip sport crags.
Why would anyone do re-equipping work for free if they can now squeeze some money out of the BMC to do it? Or get a company to do it for you..?
I appreciate this is a crowdfunded source of money and therefore not reliant on BMC funds contributed by members (?). As such whoever donates knows the deal - that some of their money (a significant proportion?) will go not towards paying for the actual bolts, resin and drills/ drill bits - but instead towards paying a company's workforce to do work which is usually done voluntarily.
The cynic in me also wonders who's BMC staff member mate's company is being paid - smells like jobs for the boys?
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Just a thought, but because the BMC owns the crag, and want it done a certain way and to a certain standard guaranteed? Maybe they are using volunteers too? Maybe you're reading way too much into it?
Anyway, sounds like you've just volunteered.
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As somebody well-versed in re-bolting sport crags who I know said, regarding this scheme: ''why is BMC paying a rope access contractor to do work which volunteers in Wales have been and continue to do?''. I agree.
Whilst any landowner has a duty of care to take reasonable measures to protect visitors from harm, what is considered reasonable may differ between a farmer with no knowledge of climbing and a national organisation that owns land for the purpose of facilitating climbing there. The duty of care for an organisation considered to be ‘expert’ regarding fixed equipment for recreational climbing means the BMC could be held to a higher standard than the average landowner. (https://www.thebmc.co.uk/horseshoe-rebolting-project-kicks-off)
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'People re-bolt routes all the time for free - because they enjoy doing it, they get satisfaction from improving their local crags, and satisfaction from knowing others can have a quality experience as a result of their work. Bolted climbs are our resource and we're responsible for looking after them - not someone else. Remember self-sufficiency?'
Following on from this, it's obvious that there are plenty of people in the climbing world who are competent to do re-equipping work to a standard that fulfills the BMC's responsibility, as the landowner of Horseshoe, to take 'reasonable' measures to ensure safety.
A 'reasonable' measure is to ensure competency. Competency, in this context, doesn't necessitate payment for services.
In fact I'd be surprised if some of the paid rope access workers aren't the very same people who occasionally carry out re-equipping work voluntarily...
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Just a thought, but because the BMC owns the crag, and want it done a certain way and to a certain standard guaranteed? Maybe they are using volunteers too? Maybe you're reading way too much into it?
Anyway, sounds like you've just volunteered.
I didn't get an invitation to tender ;)
AltradNSG (http://www.altradnsg.com/)
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Just a thought, but because the BMC owns the crag, and want it done a certain way and to a certain standard guaranteed? Maybe they are using volunteers too? Maybe you're reading way too much into it?
Anyway, sounds like you've just volunteered.
I didn't get an invitation to tender ;)
AltradNSG (http://www.altradnsg.com/)
Was it put out to tender?
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Yes it was. It was also discussed well in advance at the area meeting.
It's tempting for me to publicly defend my corner on this, but I don't think that would be very professional so I'll refrain.
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A 'reasonable' measure is to ensure competency. Competency, in this context, doesn't necessitate payment for services.
Given Shark's point about the BMC being an 'expert' landowner with an elevated duty of care, I can see why the work has to be done.
Just a few thoughts:
I agree that competency might not necessarily mean that you have to get paid pros in to do it, but it might be that doing this is the easiest and quickest way in which to ensure competency. If the work was to be done by volunteers I expect there would be a few problems, namely:
The BMC would have to implement some sort of management system to ensure that the volunteers putting in the bolts were doing it in a safe way, with QC on their work. Given the number of routes at Horseshoe, and the number of different volunteers (most of whom won't hold an industry accreditation) I can imagine that this would become disproportionately onerous very quickly.
Trying to wrangle the volunteers and train them where necessary sounds like a complete ball ache when you consider how many man hours will have to go into the project. You can't hold volunteers to work to a deadline, or turn up on that particular day that you want them to work on. It's so much easier to manage a company who you can pay to stick to a deadline and turn up when you expect them to.
Bear in mind that if the bolts at Horseshoe are currently in a state, this represents a live liability risk for the BMC. Since the rope access company will do the work much faster than a set of volunteers, it will mean that the risk is removed much earlier. I expect that if a case was ever to come to court, a judge would want to see evidence that the BMC was working to fulfil their duty of care as soon as possible after the risk had been identified.
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Where's the deadline? Why the rush? If the routes are currently thought to be dangerous then in the eyes of the law the BMC is remiss in its duty of care to allow people to climb them and should remove the bolts immediately, full stop.
Obviously this hasn't happened, becasue Horseshoe isn't a death trap waiting to happen.
What's reasonable is that some experienced people who have demonstrated competence would equip a route here or a bolt there, until it's all done to a satisfactory standard. That might take a few months to a year. It doesn't justify paying a private company to do it in my opinion. I also can't get around the awkward fact that BMC staff and rope access company owners/managers in that part of the world tend to be buddies, correct me if I'm wrong.
This sets a dangerous precedent for all other voluntary equippers of bolted crags. Surprising that it's the BMC who are setting it - given the messages it sends about climber's self-reliance and fighting against the perception by private landowners that climbing on their crags brings about greater liability!! The irony..
It also sends the wrong message to said volunteers about the value of their work.
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I would guess, that a court would likely view the quarry, in much the same light as a Climbing wall or other commercially operated, (normally an artificial structure and as a bolted quarry, arguably this is too) climbing structure.
Does the BMC own it as a LTD company?
Given that they own the land, the equipment and the rockface itself; their choice of professional installation seems highly appropriate. I'd do the same and had it been under the SW area purview, would have argued for such at the meeting.
I think there is a massive difference in law between the volunteer placed, bolt fund or privately donated equipment, on a third party owned crag.
We all better hope the court could distinguish between the two, or bolt funds and individual equippers better keep up their maintenance....
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I also can't get around the awkward fact that BMC staff and rope access company owners/managers in that part of the world tend to be buddies, correct me if I'm wrong.
Stop Press: climbers in "climbers actually know other climbers" shocker.
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I would guess, that a court would likely view the quarry, in much the same light as a Climbing wall or other commercially operated, (normally an artificial structure and as a bolted quarry, arguably this is too) climbing structure.
Does the BMC own it as a LTD company?
Given that they own the land, the equipment and the rockface itself; their choice of professional installation seems highly appropriate. I'd do the same and had it been under the SW area purview, would have argued for such at the meeting.
I think there is a massive difference in law between the volunteer placed, bolt fund or privately donated equipment, on a third party owned crag.
We all better hope the court could distinguish between the two, or bolt funds and individual equippers better keep up their maintenance....
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Exactly, you're proving my point - if you were the landowner and there happened to be a bolted crag on your land then anyone bolting routes would be screwed should any incident occur resulting in a claim; whether down to the bolts themselves or not. Broken ankle from slamming in too hard?
That's if you even allowed any access for climbing to take place. More likely is that you wouldn't allow climbers near the place unless it was bolted by 'access company ltd' with full liability insurance. The cost of which would be borne by....
It isn't a good look.
Thankfully you're not a landowner Matt!
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This is the second time paid rebolting has been carried out at Horseshoe. Other management work that has been paid for at the crag include landscaping, scrub management, fence construction etc, although volunteers are used wherever possible. One of the ongoing issues at Horseshoe is improving less-than-ideal anchors placed by 'competent volunteers'. Competency doesn't require payment but it's a lot easier to get the job done quickly and to spec. In my experience as volunteers won't in fact work to a spec.
The key point is ownership, and the expertise of the owner. Volunteers in the Peak also continue to rebolt all the other crags that aren't under BMC ownership, just like Wales. Are there BMC owned sport crags in Wales, or anywhere else?
In recent years three key Peak BMC volunteers (Me, Jon, Neil) work for three different access companies. That means free expertise has been available to plan the work, including accurately estimating pricing.
The job spec requires employing climbers as otherwise they won't know where to put the bolts. Last time at least one local volunteer bolter got some paid work out of it. It did not put him off going back to doing it for free elsewhere.
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I would guess, that a court would likely view the quarry, in much the same light as a Climbing wall or other commercially operated, (normally an artificial structure and as a bolted quarry, arguably this is too) climbing structure.
Does the BMC own it as a LTD company?
Given that they own the land, the equipment and the rockface itself; their choice of professional installation seems highly appropriate. I'd do the same and had it been under the SW area purview, would have argued for such at the meeting.
I think there is a massive difference in law between the volunteer placed, bolt fund or privately donated equipment, on a third party owned crag.
We all better hope the court could distinguish between the two, or bolt funds and individual equippers better keep up their maintenance....
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Exactly, you're proving my point - if you were the landowner and there happened to be a bolted crag on your land then anyone bolting routes would be screwed should any incident occur resulting in a claim; whether down to the bolts themselves or not. Broken ankle from slamming in too hard?
That's if you even allowed any access for climbing to take place. More likely is that you wouldn't allow climbers near the place unless it was bolted by 'access company ltd' with full liability insurance. The cost of which would be borne by....
It isn't a good look.
Thankfully you're not a landowner Matt!
And I think you might be missing mine...
Had they, the land owners, asked volunteers to carry out the work and/or procured, or asked said volunteers to procure, the equipment, to make the climbing on that site safe (even within the reasonably expected parameters and risks of sport climbing), where the option of a professional, regulated and indemnified installer was possible; then they could and probably would, be seen as negligent should it all go south.
Because they are holding forth the location, specifically, as a Sport climbing venue.
This is not the case with a third party land owner, who neither holds the location out as a "facility", nor procures equipment or equippers.
Regardless of how it may influence other landowners, it is the only defensible option.
It is, I suspect, a bit of a "Bollocks! Never thought of that!" moment, for the BMC.
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"ensure competency"
? Sorry Will, help ensure that someone claims competency perhaps. But then again, the purchasing agent are responsible for what they buy. There's a lot of very competently installed cladding out there.
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"ensure competency"
? Sorry Will, help ensure that someone claims competency perhaps. But then again, the purchasing agent are responsible for what they buy. There's a lot of very competently installed cladding out there.
Given that the BMC are being criticised for using people they have prior acquaintance with your statement neatly makes the point that they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
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Jon.
Disregarding the 'jobs for the boys' point, which like you say is an easy jibe and it's obviously difficult to avoid a potential conflict when you have an membership body office full of peak-based climbers with a budget (well, except by not paying companies in the first place..).
We have a case here where a landowner has purchased land with a sport crag on it and decided that, in order to cover themselves in case of litigation, the bolts must be re-equipped by a professional rope access company.
Do you not see the problem here going forwards? I'm pretty certain you can. :-\
Like I say I'm amazed that the BMC has chosen to do things this way - it stinks of looking after themselves at the potential expense of future access and legal complications for other sport crags on private land, and also potentially route equippers themselves.
The background to this is that BMC access staff (and local climbers - it isn't always the BMC that talk to landowners) regularly attempt to calm the fears of landowners worried about liability for climbing on their land. Bolted routes bring additional concerns of equipment failure.
So where is the logic behind the BMC purchasing a sport crag - i.e. becoming said landowner - and then insisting that the bolts are re-equipped by paid professionals, which flys in the face of the established ethos of equipping bolted routes in the UK which the BMC work to defend?!
I sometimes wonder if the BMC employ someone with the remit to entirely screw up things just to create more work for the BMC.
If they'd thought through the potential implications then they either: wouldn't purchase a sport crag; or if they did they should practice what they preach to other landowners by getting competent private individuals to carry out whatever re-equipping they thought necessary - which going off what a number of people have said isn't actually that much, and certainly not suggestive of there being an immediate hazard which needs rectifying within a matter of weeks (another weak justification used by some for using a company).
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Ok.
Long winded, but bear with me.
Last week I took my kids up Snowdon. It was my first "proper" mountain as an 8 year old kid and I wanted it to be theirs.
That's 1979, to be clear. In cheap Black's boots, that were too big (3 pairs of socks too big) because kids boots didn't exist and Army surplus kit (actually WRAC stuff, to be small as possible) that my mother hand altered to be almost small enough.
Last time I was there, was the early 90's, doing winter drills in Exped prep on Crib Goch.
On both occasions we were pretty much alone on the mountain.
Last week, there must have been hundreds of people. We still did the Pyg track to the summit in 2 hours, not bad for an 8,10 and 11 year old (I might be a bit of bastard, but they enjoyed it), but it was a traffic jam up and down. The queue to stand by the Trig was 10min long...
So, my point is, things have changed.
We are no longer a part of rogue, ruggedly individualist and self reliant, sub culture, apart and hidden from the public gaze. We partake of a mainstream sport, very much in the media's view and, often, firing line.
That applies across the various disciplines of "Climbing".
Amateur status and privilege cannot survive much longer and we have to deal with that.
Watch. Sooner or later, there will be an accident and someone will say "how were these people qualified to (be there/instal that/climb that/etc. etc. etc)."
So, I can see a point coming soon, where bolters will require a ticket to bolt, even belayer's a ticket to hold a rope. You'll never hold back outside scrutiny forever.
Please don't imagine I like this vision, it's a nightmare. I just see it as inevitable.
This issue, at the quarry, is just a symptom of that change.
I fear you might be the new Cnute Pete.
I actually wish you could be right, just as I wish I'd been alone (or almost) with the kids on Snowdon last week.
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Matt
Get a grip. It's not all a 'nightmare'. Or would you prefer your kids to be led on an outdoor adventure by some incompetent Scout leader?
Lyme bay?
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It also sends the wrong message to said volunteers about the value of their work.
The other irony here is that by constantly questioning motivations and second guessing decisions, the relentless barrage of online criticism is having the opposite effect to valuing and supporting voluntary work within the BMC. Who would wish to get involved under such conditions?
Decisions about the management of Horseshoe are made by the LMG, the majority of whom are volunteers. Membership list can be found here: https://www.thebmc.co.uk/Handlers/DownloadHandler.ashx?id=1495 (https://www.thebmc.co.uk/Handlers/DownloadHandler.ashx?id=1495) none of whom I think live in Sheffield?
They will have consulted others, such as the local area chair and the local access rep plus the local dude who helps look after Horseshoe. Again, all these people are volunteers. Finally, they consulted me regarding bolting specs and sourcing materials.
Right at the beginning when it became apparent that they had decided to look at getting a contractor in, I declared that I had a potential conflict of interest as not only do I have many friends in access work, I rent a room off Nige who works for a potential contractor. Yep, that's me, living the dream as a fat cat bureaucrat. As it was, I wasn't involved in the tendering process, or even in the decision to decide if using a contractor was the best option.
If they'd asked me (which they didn't), I'd have said use a contractor, for a number of reasons which I'm not going to detail here, but suffice to say in my view the situation is not analogous to the one you seem to be referring to in Wales.
Matt's point is a good one. Horseshoe was purchased many years ago, in good faith in order to preserve climbing there. The legal advice we're getting these days is a reflection of the times, and things perhaps would be done very differently now.
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If they'd asked me (which they didn't), I'd have said use a contractor, for a number of reasons which I'm not going to detail here, but suffice to say in my view the situation is not analogous to the one you seem to be referring to in Wales.
Matt's point is a good one. Horseshoe was purchased many years ago, in good faith in order to preserve climbing there. The legal advice we're getting these days is a reflection of the times, and things perhaps would be done very differently now.
What you're saying is the BMC has acted out of fear (of litigation) - never a good place from which to make long-term decisions. By doing so you've acted like all other landowners who have crags on their land and who worry about litigation. Do you not think that by letting fear of litigation rule your decisions, the BMC is giving up on the principles of amateur competence and self-sufficiency by which bolted climbing venues in the UK can continue to exist?
An alternative solution, which would help reinforce the message that it's entirely 'reasonable' (if things ever went to a court of law) for unpaid amateur activists to place bolts and that they can be perfectly competent to do so and indeed should be seen as 'the norm', would have been not to pay a rope access company but instead ask competent individuals to carry out the work. We've already debunked the idea that it's a time-critical project...
If it's anybody's rasion d'etre to reinforce this message then it's the BMC's surely!.
Applying the BMC's logic to north Wales - out of fear of litigation should I be stripping every bolt I've personally placed and letting 'someone else' - a paid for professional - replace them.
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Matt
Get a grip. It's not all a 'nightmare'. Or would you prefer your kids to be led on an outdoor adventure by some incompetent Scout leader?
Lyme bay?
No, no! I'm not touching on Outdoor Ed here at all! I refer to the rampaging, ignorant, journalist and the armchair busybody.
And, to be honest, the crowds (though that's a more ambiguous nostalgia, rather than nightmare).
If they'd asked me (which they didn't), I'd have said use a contractor, for a number of reasons which I'm not going to detail here, but suffice to say in my view the situation is not analogous to the one you seem to be referring to in Wales.
Matt's point is a good one. Horseshoe was purchased many years ago, in good faith in order to preserve climbing there. The legal advice we're getting these days is a reflection of the times, and things perhaps would be done very differently now.
What you're saying is the BMC has acted out of fear (of litigation) - never a good place from which to make long-term decisions. By doing so you've acted like all other landowners who have crags on their land and who worry about litigation. Do you not think that by letting fear of litigation rule your decisions, the BMC is giving up on the principles of amateur competence and self-sufficiency by which bolted climbing venues in the UK can continue to exist?
An alternative solution, which would help reinforce the message that it's entirely 'reasonable' (if things ever went to a court of law) for unpaid amateur activists to place bolts and that they can be perfectly competent to do so and indeed should be seen as 'the norm', would have been not to pay a rope access company but instead ask competent individuals to carry out the work. We've already debunked the idea that it's a time-critical project...
If it's anybody's rasion d'etre to reinforce this message then it's the BMC's surely!.
Applying the BMC's logic to north Wales - out of fear of litigation should I be stripping every bolt I've personally placed and letting 'someone else' - a paid for professional - replace them.
Or, you should be officially recognised as competent.
Something the BMC, or MT should be well placed to do.
Perhaps you should be talking to them about this? You certainly have the right credentials to set up and administer such a scheme, no?
Where agreed standards and practice exist and executed, individual liability is reduced to corporate liability, I believe?
Perhaps it is time we had a national policy and oversight of sport climbing equipment standards? Better to jump in early and set the tone, than to be pushed later by ignorant outsiders and uncaring judiciary?
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You're asking me to answer questions about decisions I did not make. While we're about it, are you seriously saying that you'd ignore legal advice because it didn't fit in with your opinion on something? Really?
Regarding volunteers placing bolts without having to worry about being sued, we've already taken steps to facilitate that, which I assumed you'd know about. BMC volunteers are insured for their activities, and we managed to extend that cover to cover members who place bolts as long as they follow our guidelines. Because of how insurance works, they need to be a member when they do the work and when they get sued (hopefully never). I'm currently re-writing those guidelines to make them clearer and easier to follow, a job which I should be doing now except I'm responding to you.
That's the last I'm saying on this as I get the impression you'd be happy to argue till hell freezes over.
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Applying the BMC's logic to north Wales - out of fear of litigation should I be stripping every bolt I've personally placed and letting 'someone else' - a paid for professional - replace them.
First of all, Pete, you (presumably) do not own the crags that you've put bolts into. So you do not have a landowner's duty of care.
Your other posts are illogical because they do not take account of the following facts (I'm prepared to be corrected if these are not facts):
1. The BMC has an increased duty of care because a court would deem it an expert landowner. This does not apply to landowners who are not representative bodies who have purchased the land specifically to ensure access for climbing.
2. Nobody is saying that the only way to ensure that the bolts are placed competently is to pay a private company to do the work, but in this case it does appear to be the least onerous. That's not to say that a private company's work is competent de facto - but you can expect them to work to a spec and impose financial penalties upon them if they do not work to it.
3. Your statement that Horseshoe is not a death-trap is not concurrent with Dan's cited experience on the other thread (merge required?)
As for the existing bolts, what's there is a mixed bag but a lot of it is total junk. The BMC has spent approximately zero fuck alls on the place previously. There are 6 re-bolted routes which were done a part of a pilot we paid for, and some staples Gary put in which we paid for over a decade ago. Given the test results for new staples aren't great and Portland are now starting to get regular failures as theirs age, I'm happy with the decision to go for a clean sheet. The other option of testing everything and then replacing the failures would probably cost as much tbh anyway.
This suggests that while a lot of routes might not be accidents waiting to happen, there's definitely a problem to be addressed. This is why there is a need to carry out the work quickly, and not in some drawn out multi-year volunteer effort, because there is a clear (and significant) legal risk to the BMC that needs to be mitigated.
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You're asking me to answer questions about decisions I did not make. While we're about it, are you seriously saying that you'd ignore legal advice because it didn't fit in with your opinion on something? Really?
Regarding volunteers placing bolts without having to worry about being sued, we've already taken steps to facilitate that, which I assumed you'd know about. BMC volunteers are insured for their activities, and we managed to extend that cover to cover members who place bolts as long as they follow our guidelines. Because of how insurance works, they need to be a member when they do the work and when they get sued (hopefully never). I'm currently re-writing those guidelines to make them clearer and easier to follow, a job which I should be doing now except I'm responding to you.
That's the last I'm saying on this as I get the impression you'd be happy to argue till hell freezes over.
Very glad to hear that.
I was just thinking about Lyme bay and it's impact on me, or at least how it might have impacted me had I not left the industry a couple of years prior.
I was an LEA certified climbing instructor. I worked for the South West Adventure centre in Boscastle and ran the Climbing wall in the Wadebridge sports centre as well.
Fortunately, I had run off to sea by the time of Lyme bay.
I do however remember how crap life was for many, many centres and instructors, all friends, when "The Activity Centre (Young Person's Safety Act) 1995" was forced onto the industry from the outside.
As an instructor, I had equally taken groups Kayaking on Sibley Back reservoir, Caving (even into mines), Wild swimming and (the only other thing I was actually qualified to do) Sailing dinghies on the Camel Estuary. We took groups into the Mountains of North Wales and the Lakes etc too. Ron, was qualified up to ying-yang and back (the boss), but most of us were just old clients that had been with him from a young age and just grew into "instructors" through experience.
Most found it impossible to get qualified in all the different aspects, after the law changed.
It probably weeded out large numbers of cowboys, but there were plenty of innocent casualties too.
So, get in there and set the tone, before someone else from a different world slaps our world down, with onerous and possibly irrelevant legal obligations.
I keep thinking about doing my SPA or even aiming for MIA, but every time I toy with the idea, I look at the costs and the whole "log book" thing and say fuck that, why should I start from scratch and pretend my 35+ years of doing this shit didn't happen.
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"ensure competency"
? Sorry Will, help ensure that someone claims competency perhaps. But then again, the purchasing agent are responsible for what they buy. There's a lot of very competently installed cladding out there.
Given that the BMC are being criticised for using people they have prior acquaintance with your statement neatly makes the point that they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
Hi Jon. No, I was pointing out the limits of what could be said. I had a job many years ago, where the contractor - Amec - had installed an access system, using eyebolts to allow access to a shopping centre glazing; it was a newbuild. One of the bolts sheared off, having only been tack-welded in place. Really frightening at the time. We had every bolt pull tested after that. It illustrated just how easy it is to assume competency. If someone had died, I feel I may have been culpable for making that assumption. On a different note, what I'm concerned about here, is what I see as the increasing federalisation of UK climbing (aside from UKC of course ;D ). Ascents won't be valid unless independently ratified by BMC lawyers. Missing out clips - forget it! The BMC are there to endorse good practice - and what real climbing is. Interesting that as soon as we have British climbing interest in the Olympics, Shauna gets honored. I totally support competition climbing, and applaud Shauna btw (tremendous), but I have always felt that Lucy Creamer's contribution was more deserving of special recognition. However Lucy's climbing lacked the union jack. It seems that now, if you want what you have to say to have any validity, it has to be registered through a BMC forum. I believe in helping the grass grow, but not through genetic modification to make it bigger and better.
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Or, you should be officially recognised as competent.
Something the BMC, or MT should be well placed to do.
Perhaps you should be talking to them about this? You certainly have the right credentials to set up and administer such a scheme, no?
Where agreed standards and practice exist and executed, individual liability is reduced to corporate liability, I believe?
Perhaps it is time we had a national policy and oversight of sport climbing equipment standards? Better to jump in early and set the tone, than to be pushed later by ignorant outsiders and uncaring judiciary?
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Matt, I am recognised as competent. That was before I attended an industry-recognised bolted anchor placement course through work.
So I'm both competent through experience and I have a piece of paper to say I'm competent. So you see the schemes already exist - it doesn't require the BMC to set up anything else. You can go and pay £130 for a day at Lyon's training centre. Or Adam will do it for cheaper perhaps. Which is what the BMC could easily do if they want to cover themselves with paperwork to prove competency of a few volunteers.
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You're asking me to answer questions about decisions I did not make. While we're about it, are you seriously saying that you'd ignore legal advice because it didn't fit in with your opinion on something? Really?
Regarding volunteers placing bolts without having to worry about being sued, we've already taken steps to facilitate that, which I assumed you'd know about. BMC volunteers are insured for their activities, and we managed to extend that cover to cover members who place bolts as long as they follow our guidelines. Because of how insurance works, they need to be a member when they do the work and when they get sued (hopefully never). I'm currently re-writing those guidelines to make them clearer and easier to follow, a job which I should be doing now except I'm responding to you.
That's the last I'm saying on this as I get the impression you'd be happy to argue till hell freezes over.
Which raises the obvious question - why don't you trust said volunteers to place bolts in HSQ?
Are you with me?
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Applying the BMC's logic to north Wales - out of fear of litigation should I be stripping every bolt I've personally placed and letting 'someone else' - a paid for professional - replace them.
First of all, Pete, you (presumably) do not own the crags that you've put bolts into. So you do not have a landowner's duty of care.
Your other posts are illogical because they do not take account of the following facts (I'm prepared to be corrected if these are not facts):
1. The BMC has an increased duty of care because a court would deem it an expert landowner. This does not apply to landowners who are not representative bodies who have purchased the land specifically to ensure access for climbing.
2. Nobody is saying that the only way to ensure that the bolts are placed competently is to pay a private company to do the work, but in this case it does appear to be the least onerous. That's not to say that a private company's work is competent de facto - but you can expect them to work to a spec and impose financial penalties upon them if they do not work to it.
3. Your statement that Horseshoe is not a death-trap is not concurrent with Dan's cited experience on the other thread (merge required?)
As for the existing bolts, what's there is a mixed bag but a lot of it is total junk. The BMC has spent approximately zero fuck alls on the place previously. There are 6 re-bolted routes which were done a part of a pilot we paid for, and some staples Gary put in which we paid for over a decade ago. Given the test results for new staples aren't great and Portland are now starting to get regular failures as theirs age, I'm happy with the decision to go for a clean sheet. The other option of testing everything and then replacing the failures would probably cost as much tbh anyway.
This suggests that while a lot of routes might not be accidents waiting to happen, there's definitely a problem to be addressed. This is why there is a need to carry out the work quickly, and not in some drawn out multi-year volunteer effort, because there is a clear (and significant) legal risk to the BMC that needs to be mitigated.
1. Does this 'expert landowner' definition exist in law? Has it ever been tested in the case of climbing venues outdoors? Is there a precedent that requires a private company must place anchors, and not competent individuals working voluntarily?
2.'Least onerous' isn't a priority - ensuring that an unhelpful precendent isn't set is surely a much more pressing concern over and above efficiency. This isn't a commercial decision, HSQ isn't going anywhere and the routes aren't at imminent risk of the bolts failing.
3. HSQ is clearly not a 'death trap' or, given the traffic the place receives, people would have died. I'm totally accepting that the bolts placed many years ago don't meet current best practice, however this is very different to saying their failure is imminent and that it all must be changed out within a month. That simply isn't true - if it were then the BMC would be remiss to allow people to climb there. The bolts could be re-equipped over a number of months by competent individuals - send a few on Lyon's or Adam's or A.N. Other's anchor placement course for industry approval. Do things by industry best-practicec, it doesn't require paying somone to bolt the crag. And the precedent could have been set - it could actually have been a precedent-setter in the best of senses.
Dan - as for ignoring legal opinion, you, me, the BMC and most climbers do that regularly when we participate in this activity. Did the BMC not pay for most of the bolts on slate? You're just being selective with your example.
Must go.. I'm bolting a new route on the Diamond this afternoon, followed soon by installing a via ferrata ladder to access the allotment. Hope I don't end up getting sued!
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Do you not see the problem here going forwards? I'm pretty certain you can. :-\
Is your point...
1. If the BMC pay for horseshoe to be rebolted then people who currently re-bolt routes voluntarily will no longer want to rebolt for free?
2. If paid-professionals are employed to rebolt it will become no longer legally acceptable for volunteers to rebolt? Is the logic behind this that if there were ever an accident relating to a failure of a bolt on a volunteer bolted route the the bolter could be deemed negligent because a safe (in the legal liability sense) course of action would have been to pay a professional to bolt the route?
3. That landowners will not want to pay to have routes on their land re/bolted and so will ban climbing unless the BMC get the crag professionally re-bolted?
My response to your points (assuming I got them correct)...
Firstly as an aside - No one would volunteer to rebolt horseshoe, I doubt any of the peakboltfund bolters would do it for money. There's 320 routes in horseshoe; at current peak re-bolt rates we'd probably not be finished for a decade (if the volunteers hadn't jumped off the Main Wall during that time!)
1. It won't put-off anyone in the peak re-bolting other venues for free.
2. I can't imagine this happening. It seems a step too far.
3. This does seem possible I'll admit. An accident at Kilnsey, the farmer googles about and finds out that the BMC replaced "dangerous" bolts at Horseshoe, then thinks they should do the same at Kilnsey and closes the crag until they do.
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So exactly what does the precedent being set here mean for the abseil stations installed by the BMC at Tremadog? Have the trees been load tested? Will they be regularly tested? Or will they be removed and proper stations installed? Has anyone even considered this at the BMC?
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So, we're now at the point where we have established that it is possible to be "Qualified " to instal and that Guidelines from the national governing body exist. That instruction/certification is available from a certified and regulated sister industry.
From my consultant days, I seem to recall liability exists regardless of payment (a favour requires the same diligence as a commission for financial reward).
So, it seems to me the precedent has been well and truly set and the only outstanding dispute is whether the payment was justified. Since that part is the least of the factors in establishing liability, Pete, surely you are arguing to shut the stable door, not jus after the horse bolted, but it appears to have settled down to raise a family in the suburbs and is working as a Consultant to the Amish public transport collective.
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So exactly what does the precedent being set here mean for the abseil stations installed by the BMC at Tremadog? Have the trees been load tested? Will they be regularly tested? Or will they be removed and proper stations installed? Has anyone even considered this at the BMC?
A trees principle function is not to be used to lower off from.
Reading back some of the posts from the detractors, there's a huge amount of cognitive dissonance going on. Instead of attempting to make the facts fit your view of the issue, why not try it the other way around?
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Any idea what the rates are like and who the POC is? Sounds like a nice little number.
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1. Does this 'expert landowner' definition exist in law?
I wish Ru would come along and speak with some actual authority here. My understanding of the law is that the duty of care that is owed to a visitor by a landowner is to be "reasonable". It is not reasonable to expect a farmer with no climbing specific knowledge, who allows climbers onto his land and to place their own bolts, to ensure the safety of the fixed protection that other people have placed upon his land. It is reasonable to expect a sport's representative body, who has bought the land specifically for the purpose of allowing people to come and weight the bolts, to ensure that the bolts are fit for purpose.
Is there a precedent that requires a private company must place anchors, and not competent individuals working voluntarily?
:wall:
As far as I can ascertain, the BMC has never said that this requires a private company to do the work. This appears to be a product of your own imagination and your desire to view the situation in the worst possible light.
2.'Least onerous' isn't a priority - ensuring that an unhelpful precendent isn't set is surely a much more pressing concern over and above efficiency.
There is no precedent being set.
This isn't a commercial decision, HSQ isn't going anywhere and the routes aren't at imminent risk of the bolts failing.
3. HSQ is clearly not a 'death trap' or, given the traffic the place receives, people would have died. I'm totally accepting that the bolts placed many years ago don't meet current best practice, however this is very different to saying their failure is imminent and that it all must be changed out within a month. That simply isn't true - if it were then the BMC would be remiss to allow people to climb there.
I'm going to make a wild assumption here, Pete, and guess that you are not a Horseshoe Quarry regular. So how exactly would you know that this is the case? Dan is telling you information from his own experience and you're sweeping it aside in favour of your own non-informed opinion. It might be that the popular routes at Horseshoe are in a decent state or what appears to be a decent state. I doubt the same can be said for all the routes.
Dan - as for ignoring legal opinion, you, me, the BMC and most climbers do that regularly when we participate in this activity.
Do we? I certainly don't.
Did the BMC not pay for most of the bolts on slate?
This has absolutely no relevance to this discussion.
Must go.. I'm bolting a new route on the Diamond this afternoon, followed soon by installing a via ferrata ladder to access the allotment. Hope I don't end up getting sued!
Of course you won't be sued, because you do not own those crags and do not owe anybody a duty of care as a landowner. You probably (again, I have no authority on this subject) owe people a duty of care to place the bolts well. But as you have pointed out, you are a competent person (which of course does not depend on you holding any qualification or accreditation), so why would there be any reason to suspect you could be found liable for anything?
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A trees principle function is not to be used to lower off from.
Exactly! Has the BMC not got abseil stations off trees on a crag it owns? And what does the horseshoe precedent mean for said lower offs?
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1. Horseshoe needs rebolting.
2. Horseshoe is owned by the BMC, there are BMC signs at the crag. Whilst the BMC's position with regards to fixed gear is that all users must evaluate the soundness of the gear before using it, it is recognised that a) Horseshoe is a beginner/low grade venue so that users are less likely to be able to do that, b) the very fact that the crag is owned by the BMC (and visibly owned - there are BMC signs at the entrance) will tend to lead users to believe that the gear is inherently trustworthy.
3. The litigation position with respect to fixed gear as against a land owner is untested. However there is good reason to assume that a claim arising out of a failure of fixed gear against a landowner that knows nothing about climbing and simply allows others to use his rock is very much less likely to succeed than a claim against a landowner that a) specifically bought the crag for climbing purposes b) manages that land for climbing purposes c) advertises the use of that land for climbing purposes d) holds its self out to be an authority on the appropriate standards for fixed gear e) promotes climbing f) is the national representative body for climbers. I could go into this in much more detail, but I don't intend this reply to become a How to Sue the BMC factsheet.
4. The BMC is therefore not in the same position as other land owners and Horseshoe is not directly comparable to other sport venues with different owners.
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(just back from bolting and FA'ing a total classic)
Ru, why do any of the above points make it necessary to employ a professional company - bringing with it the risk of setting a precedent for other situations - instead of proceeding with the bolting by the usual method of competent training individuals. I'm aware this method would be far slower, but speed can't be a pressing safety concern.
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Might be worth mentioning that someone has already had an accident at Horseshoe and attempted to sue the BMC for it. It didn't get very far one, iirc, as witnesses stated that the rope being still in the lower off while the climber decked rather suggested user error. But I'm sure it shat people up. It might be the UK's most popular crag for indoor climbers' first venture outdoors.
Pete, the point you keep blindly ignoring is that the landowner of Horseshoe is a ROCK CLIMBING organisation. As Ru explains it makes all the difference.
I'm far from convinced the poor bolts at Horseshoe are simply relics. They are the result of rather over-keen local experts getting over confident in their expertise. There are a lot of routes there that might have been satisfying new routes for someone like that but are never going to be on anyone else's radar to re-equip. But now Horseshoe attracts total newbies who might search out a short route in a quiet corner so they don't embarrass themselves. They are not likely to stop to assess why the lower-off is in a detached block.
The BMC have run a few bolting workshops at Horseshoe in the last few years. I provided some expertise and pull-testers so folk could check their work. Unfortunately it didn't result in much re-bolting. In the Peak, as in Wales, the fact is that sport climbing relies completely on the selfless activity of a tiny number of people like yourself. For understandable reasons they aren't stepping up to re-bolt other people's shit routes in shit quarries.
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I haven't blindly ignored that the landowner is a climbing organisation JB, I'm not as blind to that fact as you assume.
Thanks - yours is the first post that starts to give a reason why volunteers may not have been approached to do the work. It still doesn't convince me that it was worth the BMC risking setting what could prove to precedent that makes it a lot more difficult in future to equip / re-equip routes on private land.
If the shit routes with shit bolting in shit rock in the shit quarry are really as shit as that, then my solution as landowner would have been to get a few competent people to chop them, and over the course of the next year re-equip the half-decent ones. With a modern cordless grinder it takes less than an hour to rig up and chop an entire route. As the representative body for climbing I would have been fearful of going down the route of hiring a professional company for fear of being the one who ends up setting that precedent. I'm not the only experienced climber who thinks this is a very real risk, I'm just the only one prepared to say it on here.
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I haven't blindly ignored that the landowner is a climbing organisation JB, I'm not as blind to that fact as you assume.
Thanks - yours is the first post that starts to give a reason why volunteers may not have been approached to do the work. It still doesn't convince me that it was worth the BMC risking setting what could prove to precedent that makes it a lot more difficult in future to equip / re-equip routes on private land.
If the shit routes with shit bolting in shit rock in the shit quarry are really as shit as that, then my solution as landowner would have been to get a few competent people to chop them, and over the course of the next year re-equip the half-decent ones. With a modern cordless grinder it takes less than an hour to rig up and chop an entire route. As the representative body for climbing I would have been fearful of going down the route of hiring a professional company for fear of being the one who ends up setting that precedent. I'm not the only experienced climber who thinks this is a very real risk, I'm just the only one prepared to say it on here.
A precedent has not been set because the BMC are not saying that the work could only be done by a professional company. It is just something that they have chosen to do in this instance
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Funnily enough I did volunteer to chop some routes, Pete. Unsurprisingly it was met with 'errr'. Potentially an even bigger can of worms... who would you deem competent to decide where to draw the line in the sand between the shit and the 'half-decent'?
Don't get the impression that this is the big difference though. The main issue is getting a big job done to a spec and in a timely manner. In theory, yes, it could have been done by volunteers. The reality is it is too big a job at venue which mostly appeals the time starved and the debutante/ dilettante.
As far as I'm concerned this - the realities of liability - is the thick end of sport climbing's wedge we were all warned about. If climbing environment is made not found the the maker assumes responsibility.
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Wise words. A process that needed doing fairly quickly and to a uniform standard not something especially practical for the local, volunteers. All led by the horseshoe management group and trusted local access reps and with BMC central agreement. I think it is a bit of a precedent, but a sensible one in my view, as it shows we can raise money quickly for access and safety issues where required.
I don't know whats got into some on the forums these days: almost everything the BMC does becomes a portent of doom
I wish climbers would not bolt choss at popular-with-beginner venues like Horseshoe and I'd support debolting of such. I can understand the appeal of such routes for some very experienced local activists but the relevant climbs are hardly sports climbs... maybe we need a newly named game for them (or a choss rating).
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I like the way this thread is going, bolt choppers unite!
PS Pete what brand cordless grinder are you using? Mine is ok but overheats, meaning you have to leave it to cool down. Not ideal for guerrilla operations.
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DeWalt. Great for reverting quarries to 'as found' by the quarrier after they blasted.
Seriously the difference between our old ryobi and the new dewalt is astounding - from one bolt per battery to double digits (ouch!)
(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRYp11fKakdYVR8gfd7UrEdZ9E_NCoMfQMMON3GlkyZZfkQgLBPCQ)
There's a lot of bs being talked on this thread about speed of process and other stuff. Will reply when I have time. But speed of process? - really?, the crag was bought in 2005! What kept you? Or did the bolts start dropping out last week.
Nothing I've read refutes that a very worrying precedent has been set, willingly, by the BMC. I think the majority of climbers on here and in general have very little idea how fragile the access situation is for bolted routes on private land. Try developing new bolted crags in places like NI, where a very different attitude exists towards landowner liability - and that's from climbing's representative body! (the climbers just want to climb good routes, bolted or no). JB knows the score but unfortunately he doesn't really care for the 'made' environment. In short - you'll all be crying over your cornflakes when climbing on Malham, Pen Trwyn and Kilnsey are banned by landowners until inspection and re-equipping by a company, then 6-monthly re-inspection. And that company will no-doubt have to be 'accredited' by our increasingly overarching BMC, but that's ok becasue we'll be able to have a fucking campaign with McClure talking about it on a film, and the smart marketing wonks in the BMC's increasingly large marketing department will be able to show on a graph what a positive influence it will have on younger BMC membership applications. Because the BMC 'is' climbing remember - or have I got that wrong, it seems that way lately?
This stinks, shame most are either too dumb, too cossetted, too naive or too middle-age and resigned to 'things just being this way' to realise it.
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Pete I hope you are as correct about this as you were about how Brexit was going to be a huge success, and about Trump being a great politician.
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So the crag was bought in 2005. According to my records the trial rebolting of the main wall was carried out in Nov 2009. Eight years later and three(?) bolt workshops later little has progressed. Clearly nothing is being rushed. Equally clearly nothing was getting done either. The work has needed doing, and neither the bolts nor the dodgy blocks are getting any safer. You can't wait forever for an army of volunteers.
Interesting post on the other channel:
"Mate of mine was going climbing at Castleberg. He is incredibly risk averse.
I said watch it there, the easy stuff is lose, some think it less safe.
He said "If it was not safe the BMC would not allow climbing there"
Clearly this person needs educating, but it does illustrate the sort of mentality arriving at Horseshoe daily.
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I wouldn't entirely trust the UKC poster who reported this, but the attitude is similar to that in some previous (usually unsuccessful) vexatious claims (make obviously daft assumptions and blame someone else when it all goes wrong).
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There's a lot of bs being talked on this thread about speed of process and other stuff. Will reply when I have time. But speed of process? - really?, the crag was bought in 2005! What kept you? Or did the bolts start dropping out last week.
Nothing I've read refutes that a very worrying precedent has been set, willingly, by the BMC. I think the majority of climbers on here and in general have very little idea how fragile the access situation is for bolted routes on private land. Try developing new bolted crags in places like NI, where a very different attitude exists towards landowner liability - and that's from climbing's representative body! (the climbers just want to climb good routes, bolted or no). JB knows the score but unfortunately he doesn't really care for the 'made' environment. In short - you'll all be crying over your cornflakes when climbing on Malham, Pen Trwyn and Kilnsey are banned by landowners until inspection and re-equipping by a company, then 6-monthly re-inspection. And that company will no-doubt have to be 'accredited' by our increasingly overarching BMC, but that's ok becasue we'll be able to have a fucking campaign with McClure talking about it on a film, and the smart marketing wonks in the BMC's increasingly large marketing department will be able to show on a graph what a positive influence it will have on younger BMC membership applications. Because the BMC 'is' climbing remember - or have I got that wrong, it seems that way lately?
This stinks, shame most are either too dumb, too cossetted, too naive or too middle-age and resigned to 'things just being this way' to realise it.
Top rant, if a bit unfair on JB (who in my experience works just as hard on access to 'made' climbs as natural ones, despite his climbing preferences). Thing is, if we start moving down this imagined (unlikely in my view) chain of causality, at some point other actions will occur to prevent an anti-bolting apocalypse. I do respect your very real concerns and a little paranoia is probably wise in similar matters but I trust and respect the management group and local activists involved in this case and you can argue the precedent both ways (the BMC will have more liability than a normal landowner).
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Pete I hope you are as correct about this as you were about how Brexit was going to be a huge success, and about Trump being a great politician.
Trump being a great politician? Who the hell said that, Not me. Thanks for flinging that one Dave :shit:
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I stand corrected, you said "good" and "naturally strong", not "great".
There's nothing wrong per se in a system that allows a naturally strong politician - Trump, despite being a cunt is evidently a good politician - to flourish.
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Hehe, I'm pretty certain I was using 'good politican' in the pejorative there Dave! In other words - he's 'good' in the context of that rat race, because he was able to convince a lot of people. Do I think that's a good thing, or that he's anything other than bad news, fuck no!
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Also. Pete has strong opinions about the Horseshoe stuff because he believes that it will have an implication on his own bolting work. I disagree with him on this point, but I don't think there was an appropriate forum for him to raise this until after the decision was taken - he wouldn't have attended the Peak meet and he wouldn't have had the agenda.
On other side of the coin: I really don't want to see the BMC get into a situation where every decision has to go to the membership - even ones that could potentially be controversial such as the attempted rebrand. If they choose to consult the membership that's fine, but I think with the rebrand the organisation has found itself hamstrung by a membership who don't live and breathe the issues and who can't see the need to change.
:devangel:
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Will, my concerns aren't anything about my own re-bolting work in the sense of feeling that I should have been paid. It'ss to do with precedent and landowner concerns. I've said clearly that the horsehoe work sets a very dodgy precedent and it's amazing that the BMC should be the ones to set it. It has virtually nothing to do with my own bolting, and everything ot do with access to sport crags in the future. If you think this is unlikely, it's because you aren't developing new sport crags. I am, and the underlying theme is landowner liability for the bolts. The BMC widely advertising the fact that professional re-bolters are its preferred choice sends a terrible message to anyone, like me, who's trying to convince a land-owner that the bolts I've put in on his land are trustworthy and that he should have no worries.
Of course it sets the landscape up for the BMC to ride in and save the day by buying the crag, or making access negotiations 'necessary', thus justifying it's existence. But A better scenario would be to work to preserve indicidual responsibility, individual activism, individual choice. Climbing and mountaineering are, after all, individual pursuits removed from overseeing bodies. At least my take on it is.
As usual, it's the people actually making things happen (new routing, new crags) that aren't represented while the desires of a large organisation to promote itself and justify its existence that are placed forefront. Frankly it's bullshit. If the BMC stuck to practicing what they preach - chiefly protecting and promoting individual responsibility then I'd be happy enough. As it is the BMC increasing comes across as a bunch of people who want to grow for the sake of growth, get more powerful for the sake of power, more prosperous for the sake of money, and sod all who disagree.
I'll add that I'm far from the only person who thinks this about the precedent horseshoe has set - including people very close to the contractors.
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Will, my concerns aren't anything about my own re-bolting work in the sense of feeling that I should have been paid. ...
I know that, that's why I didn't suggest that it was. I know exactly what your concerns are (but thanks for reiterating them) because I read what you said in the other thread. I still think you've got it wrong because in my opinion a precedent has not been set, as I said in the other thread.
Let's not go over this again. I was simply illustrating the point that there are some policy discussions on the area meets agenda that are either of no interest to anybody or are poorly understood; while at the same time there are issues which are of national interest but which are only discussed at an area level - the point being that the area meetings do have flaws.
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Pete, you make a lot of statements as though they are facts, which in fact are just your misguided opinion. You've concocted a description of doers vs bureucrats which bears no relation to reality. If the BMC does what it does for fame, glory and riches, then it's not working out too well, not for me at least. Let's have a look at what we've done for activities close to your heart (all out of naked self interest, of course):
Financially supported independent guidebooks including a certain guide for N.Wales.
Pumped thousands of pounds into the N.Wales bolt fund - you didn't complain too much when we chose them as our contractor for UPT inspections I noticed.
Donated thousands of pounds of free bolts to said bolt fund and others around the country.
Got our combined liability cover extended to cover bolting work by members.
Ran bolting workshops around the country to promote good practice.
Did research to help guide bolters choose the best bolts possible.
Produced leaflets for landowners to assuage liability fears.
I could go on but I need to catch the bank before it closes to pay in a humungous stash of notes and then meet my army of adoring followers.
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Pete, you make a lot of statements as though they are facts, which in fact are just your misguided opinion. You've concocted a description of doers vs bureucrats which bears no relation to reality. If the BMC does what it does for fame, glory and riches, then it's not working out too well, not for me at least. Let's have a look at what we've done for activities close to your heart (all out of naked self interest, of course):
Financially supported independent guidebooks including a certain guide for N.Wales.
Pumped thousands of pounds into the N.Wales bolt fund - you didn't complain too much when we chose them as our contractor for UPT inspections I noticed.
Donated thousands of pounds of free bolts to said bolt fund and others around the country.
Got our combined liability cover extended to cover bolting work by members.
Ran bolting workshops around the country to promote good practice.
Did research to help guide bolters choose the best bolts possible.
Produced leaflets for landowners to assuage liability fears.
I could go on but I need to catch the bank before it closes to pay in a humungous stash of notes and then meet my army of adoring followers.
How is any of that an answer to the points I was making? I wasn't questioning why the BMC didn't support guidebook publishing (thanks) nor donating to bolt funds.
The list above are all great things to do.. but the bmc SHOULD be doing them and lots more, nobody should expect anything less of an organisation that exists to support climbing/mountaineering and is funded by its members to do so. I'm pleased about those things :)
But your answer is not at all about the 2 points I brought up which were:
1. a slightly nuanced point about landowner concerns regarding liability around equipping sport crags; and future access concerns. Which understandably many people have no direct experience of being involved with.
2. and the downsides of having 'area meets' as virtually the sole means of members debating issues to do with the BMC - see points above about national council reps etc.
Your last point about leaflets to landowners to address concerns about liability.. I think the organisation would more effectively promote what it preaches by practicing what it preaches to others. Horseshoe stands out as a glaring example of say one thing, do another. There are differnet ways to skin a cat, it could have been done better.. did it really need a national campaign, tee-shirts, a McClure video and fanfare? - strikes me as about more than just the re-equipping of a grotty BMC-owned quarry and more about trumpeting 'The BMC', increasing awareness of all things BMC and increasing membership numbers. In other words a drive for more power and revenue, with the re-equipping of a sport crag as just another piece of marketing to be played with.
The underlying question seems to be 'for what purpose?'. It seems to me - and apparently others - about more than just trying to replace Sport England dosh.
I'm all for a healthy organisation that can stand on its own feet financially. But BMC marketing wonks using potentially sensitive things like re-equipping sport crags as a tool for marketing the organisation doesn't sit well with me. I'm not the only person.
''Pumped thousands of pounds into the N.Wales bolt fund - you didn't complain too much when we chose them as our contractor for UPT inspections I noticed. ''
BTW - chose who as a contractor? As far as I'm aware no-one has ever been paid to re-equip anything in n.Wales. The BMC donated money, including money to 'cover expenses'. Except no-one claims expenses - the money remaoins in the bolt fund to be used for purchasing equipment. Or at least I don't.. maybe there's a small army of volunteers who are claiming... fuck ::)
Now I think about it I think the BMC should be pumping more money my way - for developing the Manod drytooling crag. And sport crags 'elsewhere' (it's all 'Celtic'..). Of course I did this using bolts from the NWBF, which were partly paid for by the BMC paying 'expenses money' for people to re-equip the ormes, except I didn't take those expenses.. ;D
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Your last point about leaflets to landowners to address concerns about liability.. I think the organisation would more effectively promote what it preaches by practicing what it preaches to others. Horseshoe stands out as a glaring example of say one thing, do another. There are differnet ways to skin a cat, it could have been done better.. did it really need a national campaign, tee-shirts, a McClure video and fanfare? - strikes me as about more than just the re-equipping of a grotty BMC-owned quarry and more about trumpeting 'The BMC', increasing awareness of all things BMC and increasing membership numbers.
Blimey Pete, that’s a conspiracy theory worthy of gallam1!
In fact, petejh - you are gallam1. And I claim my £5...
Neil
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No idea who you're referring to? If it's a ukc thread I haven't read it.
And I'm not sure which part of what you quote is supposed to be outlandish. Are you trying to say that the BMC weren't marketing the idea of re-equipping horseshoe? I must have dreamt the campaign, tee-shirts, video and crowdfunder..
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Your last point about leaflets to landowners to address concerns about liability.. I think the organisation would more effectively promote what it preaches by practicing what it preaches to others. Horseshoe stands out as a glaring example of say one thing, do another. There are differnet ways to skin a cat, it could have been done better.. did it really need a national campaign, tee-shirts, a McClure video and fanfare? - strikes me as about more than just the re-equipping of a grotty BMC-owned quarry and more about trumpeting 'The BMC', increasing awareness of all things BMC and increasing membership numbers.
Blimey Pete, that’s a conspiracy theory worthy of gallam1!
In fact, petejh - you are gallam1. And I claim my £5...
Neil
Let's call it Gallam's Razor. In matters pertaining to any initiative by the BMC the worst possible motivations must be assumed to be true
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Your last point about leaflets to landowners to address concerns about liability.. I think the organisation would more effectively promote what it preaches by practicing what it preaches to others. Horseshoe stands out as a glaring example of say one thing, do another. There are differnet ways to skin a cat, it could have been done better.. did it really need a national campaign, tee-shirts, a McClure video and fanfare? - strikes me as about more than just the re-equipping of a grotty BMC-owned quarry and more about trumpeting 'The BMC', increasing awareness of all things BMC and increasing membership numbers.
Blimey Pete, that’s a conspiracy theory worthy of gallam1!
In fact, petejh - you are gallam1. And I claim my £5...
Neil
Let's call it Gallam's Razor. In matters pertaining to any initiative by the BMC the worst possible motivations must be assumed to be true
Or how about some acknowledgment of valid criticism?
Look, I get that the BMC does a load of good things, I've been a direct beneficiary of some of it's good work (if beneficiary's the right word for slogging guts out). Dan I think you'd find I agree with you over much more than I disagree.
I'm perhaps unusual in that I do/have done some things around n.Wales but nothing I've done has ever been in the name of the BMC, despite some background support in the form of using bolt fund bolts partially funded by BMC, or support for publishing costs. So I don't feel any loyalty as a 'BMC volunteer' because I'm not one. I believe in individual responsibility for taking action, , for re-equipping, for developing crags, arranging access, and the BMC should be supporting that in the background. Which is how it's often worked out.
But I've raised two specific points, one about accountability to/feedback from its members via area meetings being a poor method, in 2017, to have as a main method of communicating and receiving feedback from members; which other posters agree is a valid criticism (note to Dan and Dave - criticism isn't a reason to automatically assume a whirling handbags def-con3 missile defense posture).
And one about the re-equipping of horseshoe which I believe 'could' (not will) prove to set a troublesome precedent for others who are developing new sport crags - something I'm in the middle of doing in NI and Ireland, where there's already a more difficult situation with landowners and where, unfortunately, a precedent for landowners having liability for bolts on their land already exists in one instance through a strict interpretation of the occupiers liability law. Because of that, the BMC paying contractors to do the bolting on its sport crag rings alarm bells to me, big time. I'll point out, again, that even people close to the contractors doing the re-bolting hold concerns about setting precedents.
So I just don't get what I think is a valid criticism being met with blanket refusal to acknowledge it.
Other than that, yeah I think generally the BMC does good things.
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Its your right to hold concerns about what you regard as a precedent but its not something shared by anything like a majority
Since when has 'the majority' meant that they hold anything other than a position of power? It doesn't mean the majority are correct.
I have exactly the same concerns as Pete if I'm honest - I don't bolt or develop but I have good friends who do. Pete's words don't need repeating but they do need answering, I've not personally read one good or reasonable reply defending the BMC with regards to possibly setting a precedent that will leave other crag developers high and dry because they just get on with bolting themselves. There's a refusal to acknowledge it might set a precedent or the question is ignored. Take your reply - how many lines of prose telling Pete how he could have interacted with the BMC ? And just two lines about the issue he's concerned about. He's not the only one and just because the majority seem to think it's not worth worrying about doesn't mean the subject should be ignored. I dare say the majority have never even put their hands in their pockets and contributed to a bolt fund either.
I cancelled my BMC membership when it came for renewal in September, mainly down to this subject (and some shocking advice offered to our club) and yet I've not bothered to post about why, manly because the one time I criticised the BMC on line, I had so many people rushing in to defend their friends (my friends too) who work for them. No one cared about the issue, it was all taken far too personally and in the heat of the debate, conveniently/sadly the issue was lost.
Surely it would have been better, if paying professionals to rebolt was deemed necessary by the BMC, to get Horseshoe rebolted and just keep quite about paying for it. No fanfare.
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Surely it would have been better, if paying professionals to rebolt was deemed necessary by the BMC, to get Horseshoe rebolted and just keep quite about paying for it. No fanfare.
Precisely this. There are lots of ways to go about getting the work done. I haven't heard any good reason to justify publicising it in the way it was.
As per my earlier post, you'd be forgiven for thinking the re-bolting of horseshoe by professional contractors was being used by the BMC for marketing purposes.
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In your previous post Pete you
slagged off many peoples work and motivations in an unfair and unwarranted way, in my opinion. I'm away working without my laptop so I can't write a long detailed reply but I agree with you that the issues of liability and precedent are important. I'm not going to deny that people make mistakes or bad decisions but it was the accusations of malignment of intention that got me rilled up. I'll try and respond in detail when I can to your concerns as they totally deserve answering, as do yours Kelvin.
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Appreciated.
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Surely it would have been better, if paying professionals to rebolt was deemed necessary by the BMC, to get Horseshoe rebolted and just keep quite about paying for it. No fanfare.
Precisely this. There are lots of ways to go about getting the work done. I haven't heard any good reason to justify publicising it in the way it was.
As per my earlier post, you'd be forgiven for thinking the re-bolting of horseshoe by professional contractors was being used by the BMC for marketing purposes.
If the BMC had done it on the quiet you could be sure that certain people would then moan that it was done cloak and dagger style, something to hide, moaning about transparency etc.
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More than probable Dave and obviously it would still be in the public domain by means of the accounts, the minutes etc. People will moan whatever you do, I've been on committees and it can be dispiriting.
If the crag needs sorting, it needs sorting and safety is paramount. It's the fanfare surrounding what could potentially be a game changer for liability in the climbing world that's the issue for me.
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Remind me what the worry about liability is, other than the obvious issue thats already been dealt with umpteen times (that the BMC can reasonably be assumed to have a greater duty of care to climbers than any other random landowner, what with it being a national representative body who bought the crag specifically for climbing).
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Also does it really need stating that a successful crowdfunding requires a decent amount of publicity
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What Shark said - the publicity was about the crowdfunding.
Crowdfunding means the people who support the work pay for the work, and you don't get endless complaints about subs being spent on things people disagree with.
I can understand the concerns about precedents but I'd defy anyone in full possession of the facts to come up with an alternative.
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This is by far the most bizarre thing I've read all week. So: a climbing federation buys a crag, crowdfund money for bolts and hire professionals to do the bolting, and people are complaining about the whole thing? I must have missed the first act, when said federation put babies on spikes or what?
(Well, I wrote "read", but should have written "cursorily glanced at", since my interest in naturally very close to zilch).
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This is by far the most bizarre thing I've read all week.
You must have missed the bit about the “drug testing for recreational climbers” conspiracy theory then.
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I guess I did, please don't fill me in.
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Surely it would have been better, if paying professionals to rebolt was deemed necessary by the BMC, to get Horseshoe rebolted and just keep quite about paying for it. No fanfare.
... accountability to/feedback from its members via area meetings being a poor method, in 2017, to have as a main method of communicating and receiving feedback from members; which other posters agree is a valid criticism (note to Dan and Dave - criticism isn't a reason to automatically assume a whirling handbags def-con3 missile defense posture).
There's something a little ironic about criticising the BMC publicising something too well while simultaneously criticising them for not communicating effectively. :tease:
Perhaps Dan could respond to this. Assuming the area meets are a poor method of communicating with the membership, which I'm not convinced of. Are the area meets really the main method of communicating with the membership? The BMC staff actively read and respond to threads on UKC and UKB. They have telephones that have always been quickly answered when rang (regarding insurance) and emails also. They have the update emails and summit magazine (does that have a letters section anymore).
What would be a good alternative or improvement?
Regarding area meets. If i had a concern i wanted raising I'd contact the BMC/chair and ask them to raise it. It wouldn't matter that I was too shy to standup in the meeting and shout down all others. Is the issue here Pete that you know that raising the points at your area meet wouldn't get you much recognition - by which I mean they would be dismissed as they are being in this thread (in the main).
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What would be a good alternative or improvement?
https://forum.thebmc.co.uk/
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Surely it would have been better, if paying professionals to rebolt was deemed necessary by the BMC, to get Horseshoe rebolted and just keep quite about paying for it. No fanfare.
... accountability to/feedback from its members via area meetings being a poor method, in 2017, to have as a main method of communicating and receiving feedback from members; which other posters agree is a valid criticism (note to Dan and Dave - criticism isn't a reason to automatically assume a whirling handbags def-con3 missile defense posture).
There's something a little ironic about criticising the BMC publicising something too well while simultaneously criticising them for not communicating effectively. :tease:
Perhaps Dan could respond to this. Assuming the area meets are a poor method of communicating with the membership, which I'm not convinced of. Are the area meets really the main method of communicating with the membership? The BMC staff actively read and respond to threads on UKC and UKB. They have telephones that have always been quickly answered when rang (regarding insurance) and emails also. They have the update emails and summit magazine (does that have a letters section anymore).
What would be a good alternative or improvement?
Regarding area meets. If i had a concern i wanted raising I'd contact the BMC/chair and ask them to raise it. It wouldn't matter that I was too shy to standup in the meeting and shout down all others. Is the issue here Pete that you know that raising the points at your area meet wouldn't get you much recognition - by which I mean they would be dismissed as they are being in this thread (in the main).
Ironic? Perhaps. But hopefully you can comprehend the idea of two different topics being treated differently from each other - i.e. Me pointing out that there might be better ways to communicate/receive feedback because area meets aren't truly representative of the area's membership, is completely different to me saying I think the bolting of horseshoe could have been done far more discreetly. I shouldn't really have to point this out though, it should be obvious to anyone with a bit of sense. ::)
Not getting recognition - are you having a laugh?! Probably the daftest thing I've read today.
I haven't read anything yet that gives a good answer about Horseshoe; and there's some agreement that area meets are naturally limited as a method of communicating and aren't representative of an area's membership; so I'd hardly say I'm being shouted down, more that I'm the head above the wall to aim at.
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Remind me what the worry about liability is, other than the obvious issue thats already been dealt with umpteen times (that the BMC can reasonably be assumed to have a greater duty of care to climbers than any other random landowner, what with it being a national representative body who bought the crag specifically for climbing).
'Greater duty of care' is one of the justifications used but it's very difficult to say who would be and who wouldn't be classed as 'having a greater duty of care' when it comes to land ownership - where do you draw the line?
What about the farmer who's teenage kids are keen climbers, he takes them to the indoor wall every week and they're members of the BMC, does he have greater duty of care? What about the landowner who used to do a bit of sport-climbing a long time ago and still has his harness and guidebooks gathering dust under the stairs, does he have greater duty of care? Or the landowner who still climbs? What about the council landowner which also funds outdoor education centres - do they have a greater duty of care? Or the landowner who does some work helping out with the local scouts outddor pursuits, does he have a greater duty of care? The point being every landowner's circumstances are unique.
The re-equipping issue could have been dealt with any number of different ways. You could still have paid 'professionals' (people deemed competent would be a better choice of term) if that's what was considered essential - I'm not completely inflexible and I do get it.
You could easily enough think up a way where 'expenses' were paid to a group of people deemed competent and have the BMC Technical authority quality check the work.
I recently just put two rope access sub-contractors (not employees) through an industry-recognized bolt anchor placement course for a job we're doing - the BMC could do this to cover itself.
You could also just pay a company as they did but without the fanfare. In other words there are lots of ways to skin a cat.
I don't really care about the costs, so I'm not swayed by the crowdfunder=fanfare point - I wouldn't have cared if the BMC paid directly, it is after all only the same as what the BMC do with other sport-climbing areas not owned by them! (n.Wales lime being an obvious example of BMC directly funding bolting).
Considering it's such a potentially sensitive issue, was it really wise to be make a national campaign, with all the associated fanfare, of the fact that the BMC is completely going against the culture in British climbing of individual responsibility when it comes to equipping / re-equipping sport routes? I see it as more questionable decision-making by the BMC and I can't help wonder if a culture at the BMC of marketing and growth has slightly got away with itself. In general though I still think the BMC mostly does good things for climbing
To quote Ken Wilson it's the thin end of the wedge ;)
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'Greater duty of care' is one of the justifications used but it's very difficult to say who would be and who wouldn't be classed as 'having a greater duty of care' when it comes to land ownership - where do you draw the line?
What about the farmer who's teenage kids are keen climbers, he takes them to the indoor wall every week and they're members of the BMC, does he have greater duty of care? What about the landowner who used to do a bit of sport-climbing a long time ago and still has his harness and guidebooks gathering dust under the stairs, does he have greater duty of care? Or the landowner who still climbs? What about the council landowner which also funds outdoor education centres - do they have a greater duty of care? Or the landowner who does some work helping out with the local scouts outddor pursuits, does he have a greater duty of care? The point being every landowner's circumstances are unique.
I think this is the first time you've actually responded to the argument about increased liability rather than just ignoring it, so it's hardly surprising that people were getting frustrated with you for seemingly being oblivious to the numerous posts which explained why the BMC had an increased duty of care.
I suspect the circumstances above are grey areas and, unsurprisingly, I don't know where a lawyer or a court might decide that an increased duty of care starts - I expect that each case would be judged on it's own merits in the event of it ever coming to court.
However, what your post doesn't do is challenge that the BMC do have an increased duty of care in the case of Horseshoe, which I think is very much cut and dried. So if you're not arguing against that point, why are we still here debating this?
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good post pete - wadded
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I think this is the first time you've actually responded to the argument about increased liability rather than just ignoring it, so it's hardly surprising that people were getting frustrated with you for seemingly being oblivious to the numerous posts which explained why the BMC had an increased duty of care.
I suspect the circumstances above are grey areas and, unsurprisingly, I don't know where a lawyer or a court might decide that an increased duty of care starts - I expect that each case would be judged on it's own merits in the event of it ever coming to court.
However, what your post doesn't do is challenge that the BMC do have an increased duty of care in the case of Horseshoe, which I think is very much cut and dried. So if you're not arguing against that point, why are we still here debating this?
I'm probably (almost certainly) guilty Will of thinking 'it's bleeding obvious to everybody' so I shouldn't have to explain myself, I tend to do this a lot.
I'm debating it because as I just outlined there are other ways the re-equipping could have been done and I think it's a terrible decision by the BMC.
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'Greater duty of care' is one of the justifications used but it's very difficult to say who would be and who wouldn't be classed as 'having a greater duty of care' when it comes to land ownership - where do you draw the line?
I don't draw the line, the courts would, and I understand the BMC have taken legal advice on this
What about the farmer who's teenage kids are keen climbers, he takes them to the indoor wall every week and they're members of the BMC, does he have greater duty of care?
I'm not a lawyer but I assume he would have a duty of care to them, in circumstances where he's supervising them or otherwise responsible for their safety. But he's not a national representative climbing body purchasing a crag for the express purposes of climbing and allowing climbing on it by the public, and making it known publicly that the crag is available for climbing.
What about the landowner who used to do a bit of sport-climbing a long time ago and still has his harness and guidebooks gathering dust under the stairs, does he have greater duty of care?
I'm not a lawyer but I suspect not, since he's not a national representative climbing body purchasing a crag for the express purposes of climbing and allowing climbing on it by the public, and making it known publicly that the crag is available for climbing.
Or the landowner who still climbs?
I'm not a lawyer but I suspect not significantly, since he's not a national representative climbing body purchasing a crag for the express purposes of climbing and allowing climbing on it by the public, and making it known publicly that the crag is available for climbing.
What about the council landowner which also funds outdoor education centres - do they have a greater duty of care?
I'm not a lawyer but I suspect not significantly, since he's not a national representative climbing body purchasing a crag for the express purposes of climbing and allowing climbing on it by the public, and making it known publicly that the crag is available for climbing.
Or the landowner who does some work helping out with the local scouts outddor pursuits, does he have a greater duty of care?
I'm not a lawyer but I suspect not significantly, since he's not a national representative climbing body purchasing a crag for the express purposes of climbing and allowing climbing on it by the public, and making it known publicly that the crag is available for climbing.
The point being every landowner's circumstances are unique.
Which is why the BMC took advice and acted on it. Especially since the BMC holds the unique position of being a national representative climbing body purchasing a crag for the express purposes of climbing and allowing climbing on it by the public, and making it known publicly that the crag is available for climbing.
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My opinion on why I think using contractors was a reasonable decision:
The pluralistic use of and coexistence of both paid professionals and volunteers exists in other areas of climbing quite happily. If you want to learn to climb, you can learn from a friend, or join a club, or you could pay for a course or qualified instructor. The existence of the latter does not preclude the use of the former. Why would you opt for a paid professional? Most likely because you didn't have access to a volunteer with the right skills or experience.
That's pretty much the situation the BMC found themselves in. Let's not kid ourselves, some parts of the quarry are very loose and dangerous to work in. LPT or Malham this is not. A great number of routes have been bolted on loose and unstable rock. The required skillset to not only work safely, whilst assessing whether the rock can be safely bolted and a route retained, and then doing this work satisfactorily is in my view is a pretty tough ask. Taken with the size and scope of the project, this made using a contractor seem like the best option, with the added benefit that without any personal stake or agenda, they would be totally objective about the work.
I don't want to get into a debate about why we didn't use certain people as an alternative, all I'll say is I doubt their competence to do the work to the required standards. That's speaking as someone who has stuck up for them in many previous situations and discussions. The suggestion that we train volunteers up instead is a good one, however when I spoke to the majority of people I'd recently had on local workshops, there wasn't much enthusiasm to do anything in Horseshoe. The final push towards choosing to use a contractor no doubt would have been knowing that if the contract wasn't signed and the money ring-fenced, that the impending financial squeeze caused by the SE funding cut very likely would have shit-canned the project.
The fact we've used contractors for this particular complex and difficult job won't preclude the BMC supporting or working with volunteer bolters in the future.
That leaves the concern over whether this will affect other landowners decisions. I'll write my thoughts on this in another post, because otherwise it'll be a nightmare wall of text.
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:agree: wadded
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Danm (and anyone else) - to avoid doubt I'll make it clear I'm not advocating that any 'particular person' (we know who) could have done the work. I'm aware of some the issues of one or other 'particular individuals'. Just so you don't view my points in that light.
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Pete, I have huge amounts of respect for you and the work you've done. I know that this is really important, which is why I'm trying to answer all of the issues as there are so many things which have fed into this. Here is the rest of my post:
Landowner liability:
For the ordinary landowner, all they care about is whether they are going to be sued if a climber is injured because a bolt fails on their property. From their perspective, anything they can do to either remove or shift liability for bolts on their land will be beneficial to them. Looked at from this angle, a precedent there was set long ago, when the access agreement for UPT was signed. The bolts there fall under the BMC’s insurance cover. Has this lead to a deluge of other landowners demanding that the BMC take over liability for bolts on their land, or otherwise ban climbing? No, it hasn’t, and you can hardly say that that access agreement was made secretly, it was made with a council and will be well known about. In fact, that agreement has turned out into a win-win all round. Climbing access was retained with the fringe benefit that it provides a route for money to be given to the bolt fund.
As a landowner is unlikely to commission rebolting work on their land, why would they consider using contractors? More likely, they might feel that they should insist that any bolting is done by competent and insured people in the hope that this might help them avoid any liability themselves. Nobody knows whether this would be true or not, because a case has never (as far as I know) gone to court yet in England or Wales.
Again, there is another precedent already set here. To climb at Cheddar you must be able to prove you have 3rd party liability insurance. This hasn’t as yet led to a deluge of other landowners requiring such cover. In the context of bolting, 3rd party cover is extended to BMC members who follow our bolting guidelines*, so even if landowners suddenly en masse decide that bolters must be competent and insured, there is a relatively easy way for bolters to comply. Before anyone cries that this is a plot to ensure all bolters join the BMC, I’d retort that they are at liberty to not join and arrange their own cover. The legal advice we received made it clear that anyone bolting has a duty of care to subsequent ascentionists, and that if they didn’t have adequate cover they could be in serious difficulty. So, if the end result of all this is that bolters need insurance cover, which they should probably have anyway to safeguard themselves…..is anyone actually any worse off?
Publicity: Anyone who thinks that rebolting one of the most popular venues in the Peak could have been done under the radar is fooling themselves. Questions would have been asked, and the BMC would then have undoubtedly have been accused of all sorts of underhand things (it's been that kind of year!)
For the majority of our members, the project seems to have come across as a major success and has been a really positive way for us to engage with the membership at large. People have been telling their friends on social media and getting psyched to visit, many others have contributed to the crowdfunder. If the end result is more members, and less money spent by the BMC on the project, then that means more money for other projects. Cynics will say this is so we can enlarge our empire, I'd argue that it's so we can do other good work for the benefit of the walking and climbing community.
*muggins here is currently rewriting these. Input and opinion from competent and active bolters would be useful when I have the draft together. This could be considered a hint.
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Thanks for the comprehensive answers Dan, much appreciated. To be clear, I personally mentioned having no fanfare, not trying to rebolt under the radar - that would be totally impossible in the Peak and as you say, the BMC would be open to all sorts of accusations.
I can only speak from my own background in the building trade and often, what was once uncommon, let's say public liability insurance in this instance, has now become so common that people rarely advertise the fact they have it. It's expected. The rare has become the norm. This happens.
I'm a decorator, apprentice served, Advanced Craft City & Guilds and just 15 years ago I could have walked onto any building site in the town and started work. Then one national builder who had a site here started to require a CSCS card (H&S money making bollox), just the one site mind but today, you need that CSCS card on EVERY site round here. So despite the fact I have 15 years more experience, have never fallen off a pair of step ladders or dropped a tin of paint on someone's head, I'm unemployable as a site painter.
That one builder moved the goalposts with regards to what was deemed 'professional' on building sites around here. Did they mean to do this? It doesn't matter whether they did or not, it happened.
I understand why the BMC employed someone to do the bolting and thanks Dan for your reply, you've made it very clear why and I appreciate the openness but your answer with regards to landowners and liability only addresses things as they stand now and I'm assuming, the BMC's hope that that stays the same? And what if that turns out to not be the case? What if all the parents of these new wonder kids coming out of the climbing walls (who the BMC is actively trying to turn into new members) see that the BMC has accepted they are liable for the bolts in Horseshoe and expect the same everywhere else?
At Anston Woods this summer I had exactly that conversation with the parent of two junior squad members from my local wall. He didn't take his kids roped climbing outside because he didn't know if the bolts were safe, as they aren't tested like those inside. A dad looking out for his kids, that's all but having no appreciation of how bolting in this country (and elsewhere) works. Then along comes Horseshoe, with all the fundraising publicity that throws the spotlight on rebolting by professionals and you say it's not a game changer? It will be to that dad.
Pete spoke earlier about duty of care. Up until now, it's fallen on all of us in the community. Along with everyone else, I've taken a spanner to loose bolts, replaced a couple of threads, mentioned to the right people when bolts or lower offs need sorting, removed loose rock and lost count of the times I've chalked a big fat cross on a loose hold. This summer myself and a couple of mates climbed Motorhead in Switzerland, maybe one of the most famous climbs in that part of the world and if I'm honest, the belay bolts are a bit crap. So over a beer, my mates decide that they'll replace them sometime before next summer and I stuck my hand in my pocket and gave them the money for the bolts. My worry and concern is that Horseshoe and the BMCs actions there will be the beginning of the end for this sort of scenario. The thin end of the wedge and all done in the glare of publicity.
I waffling and my dyslexia is getting to much to handle, so excuse any glaring deficiencies in my post.
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The legal advice we received made it clear that anyone bolting has a duty of care to subsequent ascentionists, and that if they didn’t have adequate cover they could be in serious difficulty.
This is pretty vexed. 'Anyone'? Including one bolt on a crux, by a single ascentionist? Pegs in Gogarth could be similarly defined as permanent installations.
Or does this only apply to the intent to re-equip for others' subsequent enjoyment? This could head off into some difficult legislative territory, as Kelvin's excellent post above implies.
Climbers have tended to operate in our own free space, seemingly unencumbered by the hassles of modern society. The indoor experience is changing that I think. What is good about this thread is that it highlights the need to look into the implications of this further.
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*edit* In reply to JonathanR:
Bolts and pegs are disimilar. Bolts if recent and well placed can be reliably and repeatedly lobbed on. Pegs are less reliable and that is recognised in the BMCs positioning statement:
https://www.thebmc.co.uk/use-of-pegs-in-british-climbing--bmc-position-statement
Logically the inherent case for sueing someone for peg failure would be much weaker compared to bolt failure in similar circumstances. Nothing has been tested in case law yet.
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good post kelvin, wadded
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A dad looking out for his kids, that's all but having no appreciation of how bolting in this country (and elsewhere) works. Then along comes Horseshoe, with all the fundraising publicity that throws the spotlight on rebolting by professionals and you say it's not a game changer? It will be to that dad.
I'm no doubt guilty of Pete's affliction and thinking things are obvious, but the BMC have a very clear participation statement that is displayed in indoor walls, just the place where this father (and others) will have hopefully been looking for information about how safe the activity they are allowing their children to participate in, and from memory it is present at the entrance to Horseshoe too...
The BMC recognises that climbing and mountaineering are activities with a danger of personal injury or death. Participants in these activities should be aware of and accept these risks and be responsible for their own actions.
The website expands on this (https://www.thebmc.co.uk/risk-and-safety) and many walls have signs about checking your knot.
Blots, no matter who they are placed by, do not change this and whilst worrying about liability and precedences is relevant and for some important, the need to educate people that the activity they are undertaking is inherently dangerous seems to have been lost.
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Blots, no matter who they are placed by, do not change this and whilst worrying about liability and precedences is relevant and for some important, the need to educate people that the activity they are undertaking is inherently dangerous seems to have been lost.
Indeed, this kind of tweeting by Team BMC "Thanks to all the Heroes we raised £16,200 to rebolt the quarry and make #climbing there safe & accessible for all." is misguided. If you say you're making it safe, then someone gets injured, you are screwed. Besides, we all know you can't make climbing safe.
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In reply to slackline:
Whilst participants *should* accept the risks that is no guarantee that they will accept the consequences of a life changing fall from a demonstrably badly placed bolt that was for example visually indistinguishable from a well placed one and it may be that a court agrees and awards damages
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Blots, no matter who they are placed by, do not change this and whilst worrying about liability and precedences is relevant and for some important, the need to educate people that the activity they are undertaking is inherently dangerous seems to have been lost.
Indeed, this kind of tweeting by Team BMC "Thanks to all the Heroes we raised £16,200 to rebolt the quarry and make #climbing there safe & accessible for all." is misguided. If you say you're making it safe, then someone gets injured, you are screwed. Besides, we all know you can't make climbing safe.
That is a good point which I'll raise with Alex and Dave
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In reply to slackline:
Whilst participants *should* accept the risks that is no guarantee that they will accept the consequences of a life changing fall from a demonstrably badly placed bolt that was for example visually indistinguishable from a well placed one and it may be that a court agrees and awards damages
That pretty much precludes such people from ever doing Trad climbing and it could be argued bouldering where you have to place gear/mats yourself, which is a shame. On the plus side it address' peoples concerns about over use and environmental damage from the increased popularity of climbing as people won't be willing to accept the risk and personal responsibility if there isn't someone they can hold liable.
The safety of climbing isn't a binary situation, there are degrees of safety and as T_B highlights the tweets by Team BMC give a false impression that it is as simple as safe/unsafe which isn't true and increase the likelihood of the BMC being held accountable in the unfortunate event of an accident. As Pete has said the fanfare to promote and engage in crowd funding wasn't absolutely necessary to achieve the aim of rebolting the crag.
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I'm not sure it's as simple as drawing a line between bolts and pegs. Bolts can be hand-drilled on lead, they might be old.
What matters is the context in which they are placed. If you are abseiling down a crag with a power drill to create a sport route - line of closely spaced bolts and a lower-off - there is no question that you are trying to create a safe experience and that a failure to do so would be negligent. As the bolts age and weaken they get replaced.
Nobody goes sport climbing for the russian roulette 'adventure' aspect. The key appeal is being able to push yourself because the risk is very well controlled. I've tested enough bolts (and pegs) to know that a visual inspection is no indicator of strength. As I've said before, this is the real ethical dilemma of sport climbing, not bolts on Archangel - you are turning a found environment into a made one and that places a great deal of responsibility on the maker. If you don't like that idea then don't place take a drill to the crag.
I suppose the logical extension would be 'so is the bolter liable for Mina banging her head at Malham?' The counter-argument would be the many falls taken on that bolt without that result. But they might be liable if the bolt was new and immediately the majority of falls ended like that. The phrase used in workplace health and safety is 'reasonably foreseeable'.
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Danm - thanks for your well thought out posts. I think we all appreciate the time and effort people like you put in at the BMC and your clear explanations of how you see things.
You won't be surprised to hear that I still don't agree with how the BMC handled the re-bolting of their own sport crag. Nothing I've heard - not even Dave's use of the rhetorical device of repetition - has changed my view that this could, with more forethought, have been done differently with less publicity and less danger of setting troublesome precedents while still doing the work to a standard that fully covered the BMC's arse for liability.
Basically, this.
My worry and concern is that Horseshoe and the BMCs actions there will be the beginning of the end for this sort of scenario. The thin end of the wedge and all done in the glare of publicity.
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No, the beginning of the end was when someone was nearly killed by some local activist's shoddy bolting.
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No, the beginning of the end was when someone was nearly killed by some local activist's shoddy bolting.
Make that 2 people nearly killed, plus some of the stuff removed from Horseshoe seems to have been held in by nothing more tangible than the dust from angels wings.
I think it's fairly obvious that this discussion could go on and on, as for many of the questions the answer is - we don't know until there finally is a court case. The fact that there hasn't yet been one is great, and is one reason we can reassure landowners that it's OK to allow or turn a blind eye to climbing on their land.
The fact that we've used contractors isn't going to change the principle that the climber needs to be responsible for checking any fixed gear they use, including the bolts at Horseshoe. This will be made clear on the on-site signage. This area is also part of the educational work we're currently doing, helping inform climbers new to climbing outside about the differences between indoors and outdoors, one of which is that fixed equipment is not maintained and may be of variable quality. I'm currently (well I was, until I started replying to this thread) finishing off our users guide to bolts and I've also got an idea for a poster for climbing walls which will prime people for what to expect when sport climbing outside.
For fixed gear which isn't bolts, well it's much easier to describe this as abandoned equipment rather than something deliberately left for others to use. Everything in the literature and good practice guides says to carry your own tat and not to rely on pegs. I don't really have any worries about it becoming difficult to justify continuing as we are with this.
Finally, I totally agree with your sentiments Kelvin. The best work the BMC does is when a volunteer wants to give something back and comes to us to get some help doing something. I've helped with several of these small but important projects this year. They'll have little to no publicity, and in many ways we're just helping get the ball rolling and then letting people get on with it, no rules other than climbing's own ethics. That to me is still the mainstay of our work, and long may it continue. You said you quit your membership partly because your club got some crap advice, if PM's are working again and you can be arsed, if you let me know the details maybe I can look into it for you?
And Pete, I know you're not convinced by my arguments - fair enough, but I hope we can at least agree that the situation is far from black and white.
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I’m not a lawyer.
But I was a Marine Surveyor. That means as part of my practice, I investigated Maritime accidents, rendered an opinion on fault on behalf of my client (sometimes that fault lay with my client) and acted as expert witness in Court or Enquiry.
If I was to apply my standard logic to investigating a climbing accident, after establishing that a fixed piece of equipment failed and that said failure resulted from incorrect or poor installation; my first question both rhetorically and to the installer would be “Why did you place this equipment?”
To my mind, this is directly comprable to fixed mooring equipment in any port or dock.
The difference, I would suggest, lies in this: Was the equipment placed to make the anchor/situation “ Safe” or “Safer”?
That the equipment was placed for the use of someone other than the person who placed it, would seem incontestable, it is the degree and extent of the duty of care which would be tested.
In short, I think Pete is wrong, in so far as thinking that the BMC decision at the Horseshoe is the game changer. I think that is just recognition that the game changed some time ago. I think the game changed the very first time someone installed a fixed belay, that required physically modifying the environment for the purpose of providing an anchor that would be left insitu and could reasonably be expected to be used by others for the same purpose.
Others mentioned that “responsibility has always fallen on the community and we accepted that” or similar, but I don’t think that was ever a legitimate position. Had it ever gone before a court, I think the liability would have been found to be on the individual.
It seems obvious to me that the BMC recognise this likelyhood?
Since we all know that fixed anchors are not infallible, pushing that message of “Safer, not Safe”, would seem prudent. So that Tweet was a poor decision, since we seem to live in a world where the most powerful nation on the planet, is governed by 3am incoherent Tweeted ramblings...
Edit:
Sorry, to be clear, that individual responsibility, would preclude the the landowners liabilty, unles they commissioned the work (which would muddy the water and divide the liability).
2nd edit:
Imagine parking your car in A.NOther ltd’s multistory carpark. Now imagine you failed to aply your parking break correctly and your car rolls off and someone is killed/injured, becuase the parking bay was not perfectly flat. How much liabilty lies with the “landowner”, the contractor who built the structure, the architect of the structure, or the person who parked the car?
Thats what the court would weigh up. I think in the climbing crag example, the court would need to stretch logic a long way to implicated the landowner in most circumstances.
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Exactly my logic Matt. Responsibility fell on the community when the gear was a bunch of random relics placed on lead, often in extremis, and intended primarily for the individual and for that moment. A sport climb is a thing expressly made to be used by others.
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Exactly my logic Matt. Responsibility fell on the community when the gear was a bunch of random relics placed on lead, often in extremis, and intended primarily for the individual and for that moment. A sport climb is a thing expressly made to be used by others.
I can't agree with that, some sports climbs are created for others but not all. I have a Swiss mate who bolts for himself. He buys everything himself and does all the legwork so that he can climb where he wants. He's completely open and honest about that. It's got nothing to do with giving to the climbing community. He sees a piece a rock he likes and he gets bolting, a new crag pretty much every year. Non of it goes into guidebooks.
As Dan said, non of this is black and white.
Thanks for the responses, like Pete, I'll not be convinced it's not a mistake but only time will tell and I'm hoping the BMC guessed right. I really am.
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That’s not the point.
It can be reasonably anticipated that if you leave the equipment there, someone else will use it.
If you grade it, publicly record it etc; then you cement that into the publc domain.
Does you friend mark his routes as private? Etc etc etc.
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So trad climbs that go into BMC guides are excused but sports climbs that are purposefully not publicised aren't? That's some twisted logic to fit a certain viewpoint
I understand the point your trying to make but saying sport climbs are expressly made to be used by others completely ignores the fact that many bolters bolt a line primarily so that they can climb it themselves. Adam Ondra would be sat twiddling his thumbs otherwise.
I'm not suggesting there's no difference between sport and trad but it's not as black and white as you suggest, especially when guidebooks are involved.
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You're suggesting Ondra doesn't foresee his routes being repeated? He's not that good.
Or your mate? He's told you about them, and presumably he has a belayer?
Just because the scale is grey in the middle doesn't mean it isn't black and white at either end - and the BMC is right at the extreme end, as has been discussed.
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I think this has all finished now. It would be interesting to see some info along the lines of:
When did work start
When did work complete
How many routes reequipped
How many routes decommissioned
How many man hours
Cost? If this is allowed to be shared.
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https://www.thebmc.co.uk/horseshoe-rebolting-round-up
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Cheers. I'd be interested to know how long the job took in weeks. Seems like a job well done.
The fact that it took over one man day per route is telling. Props to all those crag custodians out there.