No bikes allowed: Longleat confirms restricted access for cyclists after security unhappy with rider near stately home

You seem to have missed the point that Matt wasn't riding his bike, he had got off and pushed through an area where pedestrians are permitted but was told he was counted as a cyclist even though he wasn't riding a bike.

But if you can pay a sum to visit the place then it is not private. Seems like they want to have their cake and eat it. If it is private, close the house to visitors, shut the gardens and close down the safari park.

Point me to the place in the article where it says he paid the entrance fee.

He was trespassing without permission - the fact he had a bike with him was irrelevant.

Secret_squirrel wrote:

the fact he had a bike with him was irrelevant.

Then why did the guard say "You have a cycle. Therefore you are a cyclist. And cyclists aren’t allowed in there."

Because Security guards probably on minimum wage aren't paid for their Policy explanation skills?

Having a bike made it highly likely he wasnt a fee paying member of the public, probably just like rocking up in a car would have done. (See also it possible not even being open).

Just because he had a bike doesnt mean it was necessarily about cycling.  That's our persecution complex at work.

Secret_squirrel wrote:

Just because he had a bike doesnt mean it was necessarily about cycling.  That's our persecution complex at work.

"You have a cycle. Therefore you are a cyclist. And cyclists aren’t allowed in there" sounds a little bit like it's about cycling to me and that even if he had paid for a ticket he would still have been in trouble specifically for having a bike with him.

Rendel Harris wrote:

"You have a cycle. Therefore you are a cyclist. And cyclists aren’t allowed in there" sounds a little bit like it's about cycling to me and that even if he had paid for a ticket he would still have been in trouble specifically for having a bike with him.

Possibly, but given the fact that Longleat is only open 3 days a week just now there is also a possibility that the ticket question is moot.  Why should the security guard ask if a cyclist has a ticket on a day when the estate is not open to the public?

Perhaps @Tass Whitby will confirm what day the photo was taken..... that would clear it up.

Three or four years ago... part of my regular training route for the RAB. Don't think it's ever been closed when I've ridden through (and it is lovely to ride through). 

If there are NCN's going through it, then they aren't trespassing, these are public routes. If there are no signs along these NCN's telling cyclist's the land either side is private/payable to go on, then you comment seems irrelevant to the story and all hearsay.

Just so we're clear, the NCN routes go right in front of the house and the lion is just up the drive

you can see the lion on the right of the house

Also, once you get there it's not obvious that access straight on to the house is restricted in any way

Which means that initially the cyclist (or any pedestrian) was not trespassing, it only became trespass when they were asked to leave, assuming there were not clear demarcations of which roads and paths were private and public. For example, I quite often see "Please remain on the footpath" signs when out walking, and then the landowner has deliberately removed footpath signs, so it is impossible to be sure where the footpath lies. In one case locally, the actual right of way is blocked, there is a fenced off unlawful diversion and yet there is a sign demanding I stick to the path - so I walk through the flower bed (which actually had a footpath reinstated after a complaint a decade ago) after climbing the fence.

Are you sure about that?

Looks pretty clearly marked to me.  The gate and each one of those posts clearly mark the NCN's.  Feel free to circle around them on Streetview.

With a clearly marked No Entry to go straight forward.

The issue comes down to right of way legislation. Private land owners are sometimes reluctant to perceive that a public footpath trump's land ownership - to the extent that if a footpath is blocked you are entitled to stray from the footpath to circumvent the blockage, and you are allowed to remove the blockage,as examples.

In this case, if the site of the lion is not on the footpath, being pedestrian does not excuse the trespass and a pedestrian or cyclist is not entitled to take a photo away from the path, just because it is near the path.

If the lion is on a right of way, then you get into the law, which allows foot passage, but does not necessarily allow anything else apart from incidental things carried - there is a load of case law, but essentially it was accepted in court that a carried bike was the same as a backpack. However, things like sitting to have a picnic even on a footpath is not a right in law, it is a right of way - in other words a right of movement.

Bridleways are different, and in law a cycle has a right to use a bridleway.

IanMSpencer wrote:

In this case, if the site of the lion is not on the footpath, being pedestrian does not excuse the trespass and a pedestrian or cyclist is not entitled to take a photo away from the path, just because it is near the path.

That's the thing here, isn't it?  Looking at Dave's maps above, the lion is not on the NCN routes.  Sure, it is near them, but it's not on them or even directly adjacent to them.

So, assuming the cyclist did not pay to enter the estate but exercised right of passage along the NCN, it seems reasonable that they could be asked to move on if they went off-piste to take a photo.

And that would probably be the same if the NCN routes were replaced with public footpath and a hiker wandered off the footpath to take a photo with the lion.

That all being said, the security guard was being an @rse, and probably wrong, to blame it on 'being a cyclist, innit'.

IMO.

Looking on an OS map, there don't appear to be any public rights of way - all access is permissive. The landowner would be legally entitled to close public access entirely.

However, the crux of the issue seems to be access being denied to people with bikes (not even riding them) when access to the same area would have been permitted for people without bikes.

I will admit I am not 100% clear on which bits of the estate access is permitted to without buying a ticket, and I note that the streetview imagery posted elsewhere in these comments is dated from 2011, when (as per the articles linked above) Longleat does appear to have reviewed their access policy in 2012 so signage/fencing etc may have changed (I note that access for ramblers appears to have been a contentious issue as well). Indeed, the lion isn't even present in the streetview imagery.

Nonetheless, it certainly seems to have been an unnecessarily heavy handed response - the people clearly were permitted to cycle along the NCN route without buying a ticket; they went <100m off the NCN path down another tarmaced path; they obeyed the "No cycling" sign (which would appear to permit public access on foot given the situation); and they took a photo of a tourist attraction that is clearly visible from the NCN path and not (in any immediately obvious way) restricted to ticket holders. 

OS maps seldom list cycle routes, but online the OS map service has a "national cycle" layer that can be imposed upon the map and sure enough it shows routes 25 and 24 crossing the estate.

the_mikey wrote:

OS maps seldom list cycle routes, but online the OS map service has a "national cycle" layer that can be imposed upon the map and sure enough it shows routes 25 and 24 crossing the estate.

I think you missed the point - being part of the National Cycle Network is not equivalent to being a Public Right of Way. 

OnYerBike wrote:

the_mikey wrote:

OS maps seldom list cycle routes, but online the OS map service has a "national cycle" layer that can be imposed upon the map and sure enough it shows routes 25 and 24 crossing the estate.

I think you missed the point - being part of the National Cycle Network is not equivalent to being a Public Right of Way. 

So NCN routes are basically a recommendation for people without local knowledge ("We'd suggest you might prefer to go along this route, m'kay") rather than an actual route like a road or a footpath?

biker phil wrote:

But if you can pay a sum to visit the place then it is not private. 

Absolutely 100% not true.

Speaking of arses, what crawled up yours?

Since I just misread your user name as Boopoop I'm going to suggest you.

The lion statue is literally fifty yards off NCN 25, is there really any harm in the guy nipping a short distance off the road, getting a snap and going away again? Not as if that's something people pay for. If he'd gone for a jolly through all the commercial parts of the estate, fine, throw him off, this seems a ridiculously heavy-handed way to behave and one specifically aimed at cyclists (as the article and links note, the estate has form with anti-cyclist hostility).

Savage burn, misery guts

Bit OTT there - hardly taking 'a tour'. Route 24 goes right past the front of the house... a very slight detour off it to reach the lion. You're not going to take your bike into the safari park, or the adventure playground, or gardens...

Give that as the reason then, not an anti-cyclist diatribe (Longleat security's, not yours).