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Hi Jaughan, re caches on farmland, according to the geocaching rules you do need permission of the farmer/landowner to place caches on footpaths across farmland, but no one bothers, I think that is another downfall in the geocaching system.
Getting somewhat off topic, but with respect to farmland and Devon roads, as far as I am aware a landowner’s land begins at the foot of his hedge. The tarmac and any grass verge/bank out from the foot of the hedge belongs to the road authority with the appropriate blanket permission to place caches. Footpaths and many green lanes with public rights of way are the property of the landowner/farmer. Thus I have informed the reviewer of my ownership where I have placed caches in my roadside hedges. I just wonder how many cachers are polite enough to ask landowners when placing a cache in a roadside hedge. Any appearing without my knowledge in my hedges would be removed. GH.
I think some/most cache setters think there is a free for all where road side hedges or foot path hedges are concerned but all are owned by someone and that someone has to repair any damage caused. Fortunately for us we do not have any footpaths across our farm, but we do have some roadside hedges, we would not allow caches in them, after all I have seen the damage it could cause.
These replies have gone way off topic, but are nevertheless interesting points, so I have moved them to a new topic, which can be further developed.
It would appear that the reviewers are unaware as to the ownership of roadside hedges and footpaths in Devon. Maybe they are too busy trying to get caches taken off the Dartmoor ranges! GH.
Boundary title is sometimes complicated and unclear – the boundary lines on the land registry maps used can be up to 11 meters out, legally. It’s very common for landowners not to know who owns a hedge themselves, not every boundary line has the lines indicating ownership.
Roadsides are generally easier though – typically the landowner owns the land to the centre of the road, but not the road itself. I’m a little fuzzy on the road part, but fairly clear that hedges are usually owned by the field owner behind them, and upkeep is their responsibility; hedge trimming is usually done by that farmer or local farmers pool resources and share the job.
Sometimes though, the council pays for a specialist to do hedge cutting too – especially on major routes.
But don’t tell the reviewers, they’ll probably ban every cache within 100 meters of a road…
As far as I am aware all land in the UK is owned by someone, so theoretically every cache needs land owners permission. If the reviewers insisted on this then it would kill geocaching.com as clearly almost no caches would get placed. Certainly roadsigns, crash barriers, town centre seats are all owned but permission is never requested.
As far as hedgerow caches are concerned, it’s not so much the placement of the caches that concerns me, but the actual caches themselves. But that raises the question once again of what is the difference between a geocache and litter. Many of the hedgerow caches really are only litter and it will be interesting to see the first prosecution of a cache owner by a local council. After all, they have prosecuted for cigarette ends etc, and we leave our contact details on our litter!
The worse cache of this type I have come across is one in Cornwall which was placed inside a TV set which had been fly-tipped over a hedge! What sort of example does this set and I can’t believe some of the logs which praised the placement.
I don’t think that one was on my “to do” list for my forthcoming trip to Wales!
Jaughan, I’m relying on you to place some new caches for me please 😉
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