Thank you all for the kind words and effort being invested in this.
A few points really – if these boundaries are so “arbitrary” why were they being enforced rigidly for over a month?
I offered an official MoD map of the land ownership to Lindinis at the start of this saga and to say he wasn’t remotely interested is an understatement. Granted, I could have made it up, but why not look and then he would have realised it is clearly official and extremely detailed, from an official MoD publication. Ironically, it is also fairly easy to find online so they clearly can’t be investing too much effort in determining the boundaries.
Unfortunately, they are right that the land ownership and the Willsworthy Range are not 100% correlated. For example, they also own Standon Hill to the South, but not all of Willsworthy Range. It is also quite clear, however, that they do not own ANY of the land inside the other two ranges at all.
There are also boundary posts on the ground and I would imagine quite a bit of literature on the subject of this historic land ownership online. It is quite clear to me that no work is being done on the reviewers part to determine the boundaries.
My cache is a ridiculous case in point really, these “arbitrary” boundaries meant it was refused for being in the range, when it quite clearly wasn’t. Dave even took pictures when he was in the area, as well as co-ordinates of the nearest range poles. Common sense did not prevail, they did not want to be wrong so simply ignored the blinding evidence.
Other cachers sticking up for the reviewers are clearly not aware of the scale of the ranges, how long this “ban” has been ongoing, the attitude of the reviewers and probably only cache in cities. Why comment on something you know nothing about?
A huge part of the North Moor has been out of action for placing caches for the entire month of August, Dartmoor’s busiest season, which also coincides with guaranteed public access (the MoD are not allowed to close the ranges at all during August). Ridiculous.
I am not sure how good the appeals process is, I would like to complain but think we would likely be ignored. I appealed against my cache waited days and it was rejected, with a few words. Pointless. No feedback.
The “red triangles” comment is especially amusing, has he looked at the Dartmoor map?? The ranges are clearly marked by their boundaries on the map, not a child throwing a crayon at it. To not mark the range boundaries accurately in this way would be extremely dangerous.
The “lives at risk” comment is also perplexing, does placing a cache on Willsworthy Range now pose a threat to life? Are the army waiting to shoot us if we dare to put a box under a rock? Someone being proved wrong and not accepting it.
I don’t think the reviewers are purely attention seeking, I think it is power-based as well. They must get their kicks from being able to stop geocaching in an area with a single word.
The fact they self appoint is ridiculous, there is no accountability.
Lift the ban!
