senthx wrote:
Got a response from my MP's office, almost straight away, and have arranged a face to face meeting with him Friday next week.
Well, I met with my MP Richard Fuller on Friday. About 20 minutes in all. He was familiar with the Sport and Recreation Alliance
and says that he holds them in high regard. He did not know about trail riding, and so I told him.
I did not speak about the need to appoint an outdoor recreation minister, as that was less familiar territory to me. Instead I explained in about 5 minutes, what trail riding was, what it involved, how it contributed to the economy both nationally and locally. I then explained what the TRF was, what we were about, our code of conduct. He looked at the TRF website on his computer, and we talked about what trail bikes were briefly. I also pointed out that there were roughly speaking 14 Green Roads in his constituency that I ride. That yards from his constituency office was a small business, Craven Motorcycles, where myself and my friends buy our lubricants etc etc from
He asked me about quad bikes being ridden around our town - this is a bit of a local problem at times, and I explained that we think the people riding them like eejits are just that, and that those tearing around without crash helmets etc on dirt bikes had likely stolen them from us..... I did point out that there are responsible quad bike owners around, some of them are TRF members.
Our MP was not overly familiar with countryside access for vehicles, so we spent ten minutes or so discussing that. I said that I thought that elements ................. etc wanted to ban us, reminded again that we "tread lightly" and have a code of conduct and he said that he was broadly libertarian in his views, and would not favour removing rights of access, and would welcome contact from the TRF in the future, if there was need to particularly on a national legislation level.
Login
FAQ
Search
sounds a good meeting. Far less non-commital than you might expect from an MP.