Derbyshire Police Patrolling National Trust Sites

[DecemberSun]

I find it hard to believe that they can justify this amount of manpower stopping National Trust places from receiving visitors. Surely they have better things to do with their time. They were at 2 sites yesterday.

If you can't easily walk there what will you do if you break down? Who has to come in contact with you then who wouldn't have otherwise.

Do you have an expendable friend to come pick you up?

The very fact that it has to be explained to everyone tells you why they make rules.

I think it's not a good use of police time.
Even if people have travelled a few miles, this is low risk and actually really good for mental health to get out in the countryside.

Is there any official guidance about what "stay local" means?

I work 14miles away from home, and would see that as being local, as do most other people around here I think (fairly rural community means we are all used to travelling for stuff). So for me, driving 30mins for exercise is fine and means I am staying local. But I can see that if you live in London, 14 miles doesn't sound very local at all.

@Belinda554

The Peak District is the most used N park in England, most paths make it difficult to socially distance. Have you thought about the pressure on mountain rescue?

I support them.

Exactly how often do mountain rescue attend National Trust properties?

@LooseMooseHoose yes, government guidance says local is “your village, town or the part of a city where you live”. You can travel a short distance to access an outdoor area for exercise. So actually, there is much less justification for someone who lives rurally for travel than there is for someone in central London.

TBH I imagine its just a photo opp as a means of getting a message across to the public re travel?

@LastTrainEast

If you can't easily walk there what will you do if you break down? Who has to come in contact with you then who wouldn't have otherwise.

Do you have an expendable friend to come pick you up?

What if you can easily walk there and fall over while doing so?

It's a lot easier for the AA to socially distance while fixing a car than it is for someone to do so while assisting someone who's injured themselves tripping over in their own village.

All the NT and other similar outdoor attractions are ticket only to limit numbers so easy to avoid other people while undertaking healthy outdoor activity in a safe environment.

I've been doing lots of walks from home during the lockdowns, but the problem at the moment is the local footpaths are nearly all very muddy and many areas are just about deserted which does concern me when out walking alone.

However, there are several country houses and gardens/grounds within 20-30 minutes drive so I can see why people want to visit to these instead.

My (conservative) MP was asked about this on his FB page this week and said he felt that travelling to country parks/NT properties within a short drive was within the guidelines. As others have said, many are on rural areas so the government would surely understand that people will be travelling to them in cars.

Surely in order to fine people then 'local' has to be defined in law?

@pinfloy

Surely in order to fine people then 'local' has to be defined in law?

I would have thought so. Otherwise it's going to be hard to enforce any fines given if individual areas could be defining it differently. I doubt they would be able to enforce anyone into paying a fine when what lands you a fine in one area would be permitted in another?

This story is ridiculous. Two women were find for driving 5 miles from home to exercise at a reservoir. They were told their hot flashes "counter as a picnic".

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-55560814

Surely 5 miles is local? This is completely within the law, and going out to a reservoir is quieter than town streets. Why can't the police focus on things that actually cause risk?

I live in an area covered by Derbyshire Police.

Over the last couple of months there has been a number of incidents:-

1. The stabbing of a teenage boy in my town by other teenage boys (aged 14-15). Luckily he survived.

1. Then on Boxing Day another boy was stabbed to death in the next town (16 years old)

1. At my son's college (Derby) there was an incident in November of last year involving teenage girls where one of them was allegedly stabbed. The police have indicated that a 14 year old girl was injured and three 16 year old girls and a 15 year old girl have been arrested.

My DS told me last night that many, many young teenagers in this area and the surrounding towns and villages are involved in drug dealing and want to be seen as in a gang. A lot of them carry knives and he showed me pictures from social media with young people posing with knives and machetes. These children are as young as 12.

I appreciate that the police need to ensure that Covid-19 restrictions are being observed. I also have no doubt that they are also actively investigating the incidents as above. But there is also a massive problem with knife crime and violence in some young people in this area and I would like to see a police presence,discouraging low level anti-social behaviour and searching "gangs" of teenagers for weapons, ie large groups of teenagers who are gathering in groups outside and wearing scarves around their face to obscure who they are.

@LooseMooseHoose

Is there any official guidance about what "stay local" means?

I work 14miles away from home, and would see that as being local, as do most other people around here I think (fairly rural community means we are all used to travelling for stuff). So for me, driving 30mins for exercise is fine and means I am staying local. But I can see that if you live in London, 14 miles doesn't sound very local at all.

I wouldn't call 14 miles away from my home as 'local', but I think you can drive wherever you like for work.

I would call 'local' a few miles radius from the house. I work 8 miles from home but it's in another town-so that's not local to me.

I don't know what they mean by 'local' TBH, and it must vary so much depending on if you're rural/in a town etc.

It is confusing because I just had an email from RHS informing me they are open as usual (including the play area) and encouraging me to visit.

I live miles away. Even as a single household visiting, how is that ok?

@Anon6543

This story is ridiculous. Two women were find for driving 5 miles from home to exercise at a reservoir. They were told their hot flashes "counter as a picnic".

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-55560814

Surely 5 miles is local? This is completely within the law, and going out to a reservoir is quieter than town streets. Why can't the police focus on things that actually cause risk?

I agree that is ridiculous. From the link ^However, the actual legislation does not specify a maximum distance that people are allowed to travel for exercise.

Both the guidance and legislation state people can exercise with one other person, as Jessica Allen and Eliza Moore did.

Human rights barrister Adam Wagner said: "There is no law against travelling to exercise. The guidance is not legally binding and the police have no power to enforce it unless it is reflected in the lockdown regulations which in this case it is not^

Again this case involved Derbyshire Police, who right from the start of lockdown have behaved appallingly. Their first high profile example of over the top policing was chasing local people walking in the with drones and posting images on their social media shaming them for going for a walk in quiet countryside. Again at the time, the 'culprits' were not breaking any laws.

Because its a local place for local people - get the axe Tubbs!

@Anon6543

This story is ridiculous. Two women were find for driving 5 miles from home to exercise at a reservoir. They were told their hot flashes "counter as a picnic".

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-55560814

Surely 5 miles is local? This is completely within the law, and going out to a reservoir is quieter than town streets. Why can't the police focus on things that actually cause risk?

If this is true I would fight that fine using every pound in my bank account!!!

It's probably vanishingly rare that anyone needs mountain rescue while looking at the fountains at Chatsworth House.

Chatsworth is not a NT property.

I know people that live and work on the Chatsworth Estate, and people are taking the piss. Locals around the area know each other, there aren't that many of them and most are in some way connected with the estate, through work and family. All these people that suddenly turn up for a walk are not local, they just fancy a day out and think they'll be the only ones. They're not.

I'm with the police on this. What constitutes local is common sense, if it's somewhere you've not visited for more than six months it's not local.

Derbyshire Police said: "It is up to each individual officer on a case-by-case basis to decide what is reasonable as the legislation does not proscribe a distance."

Quite disturbing that this is an official police view

@Soutiner

The Po Po are being fully utilised to take advantage of the Scamdemic because fining people is big business nowadays.

This^

Just don’t pay them

Derbyshire police have form for being dicks over lockdown rules.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-52055201

@pinfloy

Derbyshire Police said: "It is up to each individual officer on a case-by-case basis to decide what is reasonable as the legislation does not proscribe a distance."

Quite disturbing that this is an official police view

Agreed! I doubt it would actually stand up if the fine was challenged. You cannot give people fines because you have made up extra rules which don't exist in law.

I don't disagree with the principle, but they need to make a clear rule so people know what they are doing - e.g. 'travel no further than 5 miles from your home address to exercise.'

Between the clearly reasonable (walking to local park) and the clearly unreasonable (driving 100 miles to beauty spot) there's a grey area and if the police are going to start fining people they need to make that grey area black and white.

Orf I take your point, but the 6 month rule isn't a great one. To use your example, I've been to Chatsworth several times in the last 6 months but live over an hour away by car.

I think half the problem is with folks that aren't regular walkers - if you are, you tend to know the quieter routes near you. Lots of people don't - and thus the only routes they know are the ones everyone goes to.