to think Derbyshire police need to read the LAW and understand that you can't fine people when they are not breaking it

[chomalungma]

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

Surrounded by police, treated like a criminal for driving 5 miles to a beauty spot for a walk.

It is not illegal to drive to exercise.

However, i can't actually find an online source for the Gove uttering.

@benedicto

So the guidance is more specific than the law? Please clarify what the law says.

If only there were 500 posts already that answered the question

@chomalungma i have been following this thread pretty much since the beginning, and posting on it. People have posted various things, not all accurate.
I think it is OK to point out that it is hard to follow Guidance and law at the same time if they don't say the same things. As far as I can tell, the guidance expressly states you can travel for exercise within your area (but does not define 'area'), and the law states nothing.

@wowfudge

Afaik at least one of the women lives in Leicestershire and the guidance tells you to stay local. Mind you, I can walk for ten minutes and be in a different county and different local authority area. I do think the police response was heavy-handed and they could have just told them to go home rather than fining them.

Exactly, the road is live on divides two boroughs, if my borough is my local area I wouldn’t be able to cross the road. This is why ‘local’ area isn’t a strict thing as it hugely depends where people live.

This is scary stuff- they seem to be targeting the wrong people- there are many people breaking the covid rules (and actual laws) in a big way, I don't think these women are doing anything wrong.

[quote benedicto]@chomalungma i have been following this thread pretty much since the beginning, and posting on it. People have posted various things, not all accurate.
I think it is OK to point out that it is hard to follow Guidance and law at the same time if they don't say the same things. As far as I can tell, the guidance expressly states you can travel for exercise within your area (but does not define 'area'), and the law states nothing.[/quote]
In that case then you will have seen the LAW itself quoted several times

But again.

It's here

www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/1374

And the section on exercise

www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/1374/schedule/3A

Which has been quoted many many many times on this thread.

Shameful story. Young girls living alone, drove separately, brought their own drinks. Walked around outside. All within the rules.

As to the issue of locality, this isn't even clearly defined. Personally I think 7 miles IS local. But even if you disagree, surely it's more sensible to drive 10 mins to a large open space, than walking out locally to a busy urban area. Otherwise we'll end up with the sprawling parklands and nature reserves virtually empty (by their very nature not many folk are on the doorstep), and the spaces within densely populated areas will be packed full of "locals".

To have acted so heavy-handedly, those officers are either thick as pig shit, or bullies emboldened by the current climate. If the govt wants compliance it needs to get a grip on incidents like these, or people will lose all faith and patience.

@benedicto

So we have to following the Guidance (which is what I quoted) and the law at the same time, but they say different things?

Only the law (legislation, regulations) is legally enforcsble.

Guidance can add colour and assist in interpretation where the law is ambiguous. As can ministerial statement.

However, neither should be used to invent laws that don't exist.

The police certainly shouldnt be adding distance limits that do not sieciducallu appear in either.

This is really important in a democracy. For instance, if the law didn't state a limit to travel to exercise, but guidance did, that would tend towards being a breach of the most fundamental rule of democracy, that only Parliament can make legally enforcable rules, if the guidance were enforced.

As an example, the Highway Code is guidance but not law. It is not legally enforceable in the way that the Road Traffic Acts are.

That a number of posters on mumsnet have no difficulty in understanding these basic concepts but certain police forces do, is rather concerning.

Personally, I'd rather love to be stopped and fined for breaching something that wouldn't stand up in court, and then challenging it and making a big fuss about doing so.

This kind of thing is inevitable when the legislation does not match what the government seems to want people to do. (Although you'd hope that the police would understand the difference, even if the public are confused.)

If they really don't want people to drive to exercise, they should have included that in the legislation. As they have in Wales - our exercise has to start and end at home, no driving allowed. This means I have to walk around streets instead of at the beach or countryside, dog can't go off lead etc. But if that's what it takes, I'm happy to do my part.

People should not be fined for breaking what the police think the law should be.

hasn't this already been done? They're selfish twats, how many of us really NEED to drive somewhere (and they crossed from one county to another I think I read) to walk? Multiply this by thousands of such idiots and that explains why the country's near the top of the Covid charts. Police no doubt there as they were expecting such unneccessary trips.

@ginghamstarfish

hasn't this already been done? They're selfish twats, how many of us really NEED to drive somewhere (and they crossed from one county to another I think I read) to walk? Multiply this by thousands of such idiots and that explains why the country's near the top of the Covid charts. Police no doubt there as they were expecting such unneccessary trips.

Being a selfish twat isn't against the law, and neither is crossing a county boundary.

They're selfish twats

For following the law and not breaking it?

They're selfish twats, how many of us really NEED to drive somewhere (and they crossed from one county to another I think I read) to walk?

It's not selfish to want to go somewhere quieter for a walk with a friend, nor does crossing into another county make them a twat. CRUCIALLY NEITHER IS ILLEGAL.

Multiply this by thousands of such idiots and that explains why the country's near the top of the Covid charts.

Cases are not rising because people are going for walks in quiet areas outdoors, if you think this is why cases are rising you need to stop believing everything you read on social media and engage your brain.

Police no doubt there as they were expecting such unneccessary trips.

The trip was entirely within the law. You could try and argue it unnecessary all you like but we are discussing whether they broke the law and the answer no matter how you argue it is no they didn't.

Some of the reservoirs round here have been ridiculous recently. I class one as my local walk as I've been taking my dogs there for almost 40 years.It's a similar distance as this case from my home.However last time I went I thought no more for awhile.And that was prior to the new lockdown.Car park overflowing and terrible parking on nearby roads. Groups of people clutching coffees standing around chatting and got asked several times about the area by people who had driven quite some way for a change.From areas that aren't short of decent walking areas.
I don't think the police should fine unless it's categorically a law that's been broken.However I can understand why in areas like Derbyshire and The Dales etc they are trying to discourage an influx.But the guidelines are once again too vague and 'local ' too open to mis- interpretation .

@ginghamstarfish

hasn't this already been done? They're selfish twats, how many of us really NEED to drive somewhere (and they crossed from one county to another I think I read) to walk? Multiply this by thousands of such idiots and that explains why the country's near the top of the Covid charts. Police no doubt there as they were expecting such unneccessary trips.

I don't think they're twats but even if they were it's not illegal to be a twat so why were the police getting involved when the women were obeying the law to the letter @ginghamstarfish

Oh and BTW COVID rates aren't high because of outdoor walks, transmission happens almost exclusively indoors. HTH

apologies if already answered - but who took the photo? The one where they are in the fashion gear carrying the coffees, in case there are others about. Clearly not a selfie so was there someone else there?

they do look a bit dickish but they've broken no laws.

and they crossed from one county to another I think I read

Where my mum lives, the county line runs down the middle of her road.

She has to cross into a different county to go to work, go to the village shop or her nearest supermarket, post a letter in a post box, pick up medication from the chemist, walk her dog in the park at the end of her road. Even the parking area that they park their cars in is in a different county. She has no pavement on her side of the road so has to cross into a different county to even walk safely from her front door

Or, she’d have to drive at least 5 miles (having crossed into a different county to get into her car!) to access any of this stuff in her own county

Crossing a county border isn’t against the law.

apologies if already answered - but who took the photo? The one where they are in the fashion gear

No idea who took it, but what on earth is “fashionable” about wellies and a big coat?

I wear that get up every day when walking my dog and doing my horses

Multiply this by thousands of such idiots and that explains why the country's near the top of the Covid charts.

You really believe our numbers are as they are due to people walking in the countryside, @ginghamstarfish? Nothing to do with a new Covid variant and the fact that we're right on the incubation period for people getting together for Christmas and New Year?

@countrygirl99

Blimey, that's closer than my nearest supermarket.

Any supermarket with a click and collect is over 30 miles away for me. That's about a 45 minute drive.

I live in a country village so 7 miles is nothing at all here. You wouldn't think twice to drive it.
My mum lives almost 9 miles away and I consider her to be just down the road and will drive there a few times a day without thinking about it.

I can see how some posters are seeing it as a long way though. When I lived in a busy town, driving to the next town just 15 minutes away seemed like a big undertaking. Driving that far just to go to a supermarket would be overkill, considering there were loads much closer.

@Arobase

Multiply this by thousands of such idiots and that explains why the country's near the top of the Covid charts.

You really believe our numbers are as they are due to people walking in the countryside, @ginghamstarfish? Nothing to do with a new Covid variant and the fact that we're right on the incubation period for people getting together for Christmas and New Year?

This is something that I am also annoyed about at the moment. On LBC last night Andrew Pierce was running an entire programme about how case numbers/hospitalisations/deaths are rising due to people not following the guidance/law. But it was barely mentioned that the timing of the current increases correlate perfectly with Christmas and 44% of the population apparently mixed households indoors over Christmas (as allowed by the governments). That is what is underlying the current increases. Any consequences of whether or not people have been following guidance in the past week and currently won't be seen in the figures for another fortnight in terms of hospitalisations or month in terms of deaths.

@benedicto for our county it was the schools running, not even Christmas. In three weeks I received half a dozen emails from two different schools about there being a case and whether or not my kids needed to isolate. In the end I pulled them all out because I decided to get an asymptomatic test (a scheme run in our area that encourages testing without symptoms) done on DS because I knew he must have been near one kid I knew had it. DS was positive. We all isolated and tested the day we were allowed to be out of quarantine/isolation. Once we had the all clear we felt secure we could go out without potentially harming anyone.

DS catching it had nothing to do with anyone driving to exercise or doing a socially distanced, masked food shop, and all to do with being in close proximity to a bunch of other kids 6 hours a day. And I agree, Christmas would have been a huge spread factor too.

My husband is a farmer in South Derbyshire. Anybody would think the population of our nearest town must have quadrupled in the last 9 months with the number of people now having walk through the far compared to pre-Covid.

Fine, if it's within the law, their out of control fucking dogs aren't chasing the sheep, they're not chucking their trash out everywhere along their lovely little walk or worst of all, not dirty fucking tramps, congregating in groups to have a bloody drug fuelled party leaving their crap, glass etc behind. And yes the police have been called. Too many people are totally disgusting, disrespectful, dragged up scum.

those officers are either thick as pig shit, or bullies emboldened by the current climate.

That's the police for you. Although you did forget sexist.

Ive just gone for a half hour walk, live very close to a beach and obviously avoided the beach as its likely packed on a Saturday

I still spent a lot of time crossing over and walking in the road, and this isn’t that busy a village...I’m about 10/15 minutes walk from the village centre

So i do understand why people in busy areas might find it easier to drive somewhere