News

The free the fields campaign is respectfully asking all key kite sports stakeholders for their support. I am NOT asking for money. We are attempting to make a small change to the countryside management regulations that will give those that want to, the opportunity to create safe flying zones. This is a change that will benefit all kite sports, whether, Sand, Land, Board, Buggy, Sea or Snow.

I am not doing this for any other reason than to help those that have the commitment and enterprise to work with farmers to create local, safe flying sites. Kiter’s used to be able to do this. At the end of 2005 the old CAP was reformed and replaced with the Single Payment Scheme. Under this scheme farmers, under certain criteria (Cross Compliance) are allowed to permit non-agricultural activities to be carried out on their land, without it affecting their subsidies. The list of permitted activities is divided in two: a) Permitted without Restriction. b) Permitted with significant restriction.

I was trying to work with a farmer who was willing to work with us, but was obviously concerned about the new regulations. I wrote to the Rural Payments Agency, who administer the SPS for DEFRA, to establish where our sport fell in the list. In January 2006 I received a letter stating that we were classified as a “Motor sport”. As a Motor Sport we are entitled to work with Farmers but for only 2 months a year. This situation brought a halt to the process, but left me confused as Para gliders and Hang gliders are listed in the A list.

I believe that by making this small change to the regulations kite sports will benefit in the following ways:

        Improve the possibility of access to new sited by local flying communities

        Relieve the pressure off the beaches and other popular flying spots

        Reduce the pressure to Ban the sport from local sports fields, parks and other public areas.

        Eventually reduce the hassle of flying and therefore reduce a barrier to entry into the sport and make it more attractive to new comers.

I am lucky, I have managed to establish a relationship with an aerodrome and set up a club, when we can’t get on there are only a few of us so the pressure on the local playing fields is slight. There are new kiters coming along all the time, which is great, but as the sport continues to grow in popularity this situation will not last for long. Every year we see around the country good free spots coming under pressure, this can only get worse, as you are all already aware. It is our opinion that we should try and help ourselves, in whatever way we can.

Some weeks ago a Petition was started on the PM’s website ( petitions.pm.gov.uk/safeflyzones ) and promoted the petition on many forums. So far we have 333 signatures with over 2500 forum views and 278 posts. I have set up a Blog page with more detail on freethefields.blogspot.com . I have written to the Head of Cross Compliance policy requesting an initial exploratory meeting.

How can you help? Sign the petition and spread the word in anyway you like. If you have had experience of changing regulation and would like to offer advice or assistance, we’d love to benefit from that. If you have a website it would be great if you could create a link to the blog site or to the petition. Banners Are available on the Blog page, or add the RSS feed to your News Pages. If you would like it, let us know we’ll add a reciprocal link to your site.

Thank you for taking the time to read this email.

Chris Dowie

(Kiter, Sywell Kite Club, Free the Fields Campaign)