We are aware that over the last several months many of you have had to wait some time to receive Leck Fell permits. Our apologies for this; rest assured change is on the way.
Effective immediately, Leck Fell permits will be managed by Geoff Whittaker.
The CNCC website has been updated with contact details for Geoff. We are confident that permit requests will be dealt with by email extremely promptly moving forward.
If you have any outstanding requests, please forward them through to Geoff.
All permits issued previously are still valid, although it would also be very helpful if those with upcoming permits could please let Geoff know what/when these are so we can ensure this is in the diary and avoid any double booking of that entrance on that date.
We appreciate that Leck Fell is open access land.
The CNCC has a good dialogue with the landowners of Leck Fell; they are aware of the BCA CRoW campaign. However, until the Government bodies decide to support the BCA view, the landowner desires continuation of managed access.
At present this takes the form of the permit system that has been in operation for many years.
We are aware that this is outdated and does not reflect modern needs and expectations of cavers. Those of you who follow CNCC business will be aware of the online booking system currently being trialled on Ingleborough. We are hopeful that in the near future (maybe even before the end of this year) we will be able to extend this to Leck Fell too. This compromise system will meet the wishes of the landowners for managed access, helping sustain good relations, while making access available for all using a modern and simple system. It is a solution that we hope will satisfy everyone.
For now, your cooperation with the existing permit system is kindly requested.
When we discuss the online system with the Leck Fell landowners later this year, it will put us in a good position to show permit statistics for the last few months demonstrating caver goodwill for continued respect of landowner wishes, while also demonstrating that there is a continued desire for access to justify a more modern system.
Thank you for your cooperation.