Another G SOTA Addition and Deletion

I have a response from the Ordnance Survey (OS) regarding the height issue at Hensbarrow Down/Beacon. It has not been as helpful as I had hoped but the reason is more concerning.

The OS have not resurveyed this area and will not until it has been assessed as safely assessible. At the current time they do not deem this area suitable or safe for resurvey.

As the OS are THE National authority on all matters pertaining to mapping and other cartographic issues this statement must raise doubt over the validity of any survey carried out by any other organisation. Therefore the decision by RHB to change the summit location must be questioned and suspended until such time as the Government Agency - the OS, have deemed it safe to survey accurately.

All of us who have activated this summit know that the spoil heaps are higher - that is not the issue. The issue is one of the validity of the new survey. I recommend MT move to suspend their decision to change the summit until such time as a valid survey can be carried out.

Once the spoil heap has settled and been deemed safe to use it will then, most probably, be opened for access.

73 Glyn

Which bit has never happened? I’m frustrated, travelled hundreds of miles and followed the rules and will have to go back to ld059 and dc008 because RHB says so.

How can you go back to somewhere you’ve never been?

This is not an MT decision. It is the AM that decides this in SOTA, based upon the latest information in the Database of British Hills.

Did you get that out of a Christmas cracker, it seems familiar.

I don’t know Tom, How can you go back to somewhere you’ve never been?

Correct so delete MT insert AM.

However, the MT have (or should have) the powers to over rule the AM especially when the information in the Database of British Hill has to be questioned.

Micheal,

The list of summits in the UK is based on the Marilyns as described by the RHB Group. These guys are only interested in getting to the summit.

For SOTA we take that list and add the idea of AZ (Activation Zone) because that makes it possible to setup a station “at the summit” that is less of an inconvenience to other people and makes SOTA practical.

SOTA adds the rule that you cannot go to somewhere private without permission.

The list of summits is those which meet the criteria (in the UK P150). Whether you can physically get to the summit is not our problem. The summit may be private, or on a firing range, or contaminated land or religious land. Or maybe you can go there without anybody caring. But the access limits do not affect whether it is a P150 summit. There are summits which have had restrictions removed and summits which have had restrictions added. The MT do not add and remove summits depending on access, only that they meet the association criteria.

This means you can have valid SOTA summits that cannot be activated at present. There are 2 in England I am aware of, Upper Park and this one when it goes live. There are thousands of summits where access is forbidden, lots in the US and VK for example.

The RHB have determined the summit is now on the restored spoil tip. The AM has given notice the summit will move to this new place and given 6months notice so you can visit the old one. Whether the new summit is accessible is not the AM’s concern, he has done everything perfectly by the book.

Andy
As a participant in SOTA I always follow the rules and have never questioned them here or otherwise, and agree 100% will everything you have said.
It just seems odd that RHB have gone onto private land took measurements and we follow their findings, even though there are no OS maps to confirm it. We all knew that Hensbarrow was wrong, every report even Toms says this. Muncaster fell can be seen to be wrong using Google Earths flood tool.
I thinks we (SOTA) could have made a better judgement for ourselves on these two summits. SOTA is a popular worldwide group and perhaps we should make a few of our own decisions in the future and let others follow us.

At present there is no DC-008, you travelled to activate DC-004, when DC-008 appears on the list of valid summits it will be your choice whether you travel to DC again to activate it - I would say “why not?”, it’s a good holiday area! I’ve no idea what LD-059 is, its not on the summit list, but who needs a reason to go to LD?

"Post by M0HGY*

Please be advised that if anyone still wished to activate the Muncaster Fell - Hooker Crag G/LD-055 summit, you now until the 1st March to do this, after than, it will no longer be a SOTA summit. The new Muncaster Fell G/LD-059 summit will be valid from the 2nd March which is SOTAs 15th birthday.

Jimmy M0HGY
G - Association Manager

Ah, yes, thanks - I had forgotten. Same again, though, you are not returning to LD-055, you are going to a new summit. Unlike “DC-008”, LD-059 is an unambiguous replacement.

While the RHB list has been adopted as the UK authority, I would say that this is an AM matter rather than an MT matter. In other words, if Jimmy as AM determines that there are reasonable grounds to disregard the RHB decision, I think he has the authority to disregard it. He might, for instance, decide that lack of a modern OS survey of Henbarrow Downs is sufficient reason to delay or avoid adoption of DC-008. I am not advocating that he does so, merely pointing out that it is his right to make such a decision.

Yeah, it’s different. Muncaster Fell G/LD-059 is a different hilltop to Muncaster Fell-Hooker Crag G/LD-055. And the same for Hensbarrow Downs G/DC-008 vs Hensbarrow Beacon G/DC-004.

BTW, the surveyors providing info to the OS, quite often, are the RHB/DoBH guys! OS accept survey information from RHB, and in recent years have even been known to alter spot heights on their mapping on receipt of RHB-submitted survey results.

I have every confidence in the DoBH being the most up-to-date and accurate information from which to derive the British Marilyns (P150) list, and in the G AM to analyse and use this information appropriately.

I didn’t know that Tom, but I still don’t see these as new summits rather than we have been using the wrong height information and climbing the wrong hills for the SOTA awards, or why would the old ones be removed. But that is just my opinion and I will always go along with whatever the rules are.

Things change because someone repeats a measurement and finds the old one was wrong.

The UK uses the RHB list. That’s how it was designed from the start. Other associations use other lists where available. Or it’s done by the summits team and the AM and their team.

The RHB have some guys who like checking if things are accurate on OS maps. Mapping is an amazing approximation of reality and so they find errors and publish new lists of summits.

We change our summits to match.

EDIT: in this case, the RHB have decided an old manmade hill now looks sufficiently like a natural hill that they don’t consider it manmade and hence have moved the top.

“Once the spoil heap has settled and been deemed safe to use…”

You make it sound like I will need to strap a plank across my backside in case I fall in! I don’t really think that is likely. After all, ground within the OA land has received the same treatment and I can’t see that they would stabilise that area and not the remainder. However, I will make an assessment of the condition of the ground and take photographs.

In my opinion the arguments for /against changing from LD-055 to LD-059 and DC-004 to DC-008 are not the same. The two summits in the Lakes are both natural and separated by low point that is greater than the AZ figure. This is no different to changes made in G/NP some years ago and in many other places within and outside the UK.

Technically Hensbarrow Beacon as DC-004 should never have existed because since the inception of both SOTA and the RHB the spoil heap has always been higher. However, I can see that Hensbarrow Beacon served a useful purpose in that it was (is) the highest truly natural point and rightly or wrongly the RHB made the decision to use it as the summit of what is a Marilyn any way that you look at it.

The situation at Hensbarrow is possibly unique in England, if not in Great Britain where RHB data is used to determine the SOTA summits. It would have been better had the RHB cleared the new summit information with the Ordnance Survey before publically declaring the change. It would not have been open to debate had that been the case and we might have been fortunate enough to have OS data with contours on it.

Gerald G4OIG

I think Mynydd Machen was mentioned as in the same situation.
73,
Rod
edit GW/SW-030

I’ll pass on your comments to Alan at the RHB telling him how he should conduct RHB activities in future so as to ensure everything meets with your approval.

Do what want to do Andy, but as Ordnance Survey are THE people who determine the mapping for Great Britain, then they out rank RHB. No ifs, no buts. Get real.

Does the name Aberfan mean anything to you?

When I was young there were many colliery waste tips in South Wales. On 21-10-66 there was a catastrophic failure of a tip above Aberfan, an avalanche of fluidised waste engulfed the village, there were 144 deaths, of which 116 were children. Since then the tips have been removed or stabilised and landscaped. The point is that it was realised that spoil heaps were not safe because they were not solid, just great mounds of unconsolidated waste, and they had to be made safe. Imagine them, if you like, as great pyramids of scree. Now if you look at the OS maps or Google maps, you will see that Hensbarrow is surrounded by several huge pits - and I mean HUGE! There was always the possibility that material from the tips could be used to fill the inactive pits so the area could be restored, so until the decision was made and the tip made safe and landscaped it had to be regarded as a temporary feature.

You see, it wasn’t enough that the tip should be higher than the Beacon, the tip could not be regarded as a summit until it was made safe and its permanence assured. Therefore I believe that the RHB made the right decision originally and I hope that they have made the right decision now.