MADAM,

Your correspondent from Whitelye is right to highlight the NRW arbitrary actions on Beacon Hill.

However, he will need to be seated when he does glean through our county councillor the actions and costs involved. As evidenced by a hand-delivered two-page NRW letter to Pen y fan residents, it has been a 12 month bureaucrats jamboree, joyride, Octoberfest all run together.

Mr Simpson makes the points concerning costs and blocking accesses that have served the community for as long as can be remembered. The NRW action stems from public complaints over solstice worshippers’ use of Beacon Hill in June 2014. This specific nuisance was swiftly dealt with by recourse to the courts and an injunction that prohibits any return to the area. However, NRW conducted a consultation which centred on a meeting in The Narth Village Hall in October 2014. As with Mr Simpson I and many others left that meeting with the strong impression that our pleas to maintain some status quo and in particular the essential access for emergency vehicles had been accepted.

NRW now claim they have had to act:

1. To bring Beacon Hill in line with other NRW managed lands;

2. As owners vehicles using the tracks are uninsured;

3. Damage from 4x4s and motor bikes;

4. General misuse of the area.

Neither of one or two can justify hefty expenditure of tax payers’ monies while the level of damage has been relatively low when compared with other areas and in any event will hardly be reduced given other points of access.

There are two serious issues requiring attention. NRW have shown disgraceful disregard for public/ community views to the extent that they have put Pen y fan residents’ lives and properties at greater risk and used public monies with a total absence of any consideration for value for money. I have noted other instances of NRW poor prioritisation in allocating grants. It seems a visit from the auditor general is long overdue.

John Lewis

(Monmouth)