It is interesting to see a real person (Thomas DC1TRX) now commenting on this summit. The MT have received many, quite unpleasant, emails demanding we remove this summit from the list. They come from someone who uses an email address of the form "no@visitors.de". His beef is not that this is a nature reserve but it is a private hunting ground and visitors are not allowed anywhere and he is fed up with people asking about access. However, as he always has written to us in way to hide his real identity we have not been able to tell him how things work. This idea that this is private hunting land seems to be outwith your comment that this is a protected nature area. You donât normally go hunting in protected areas!
The summits listed are those that meet the criteria for SOTA (P150 or P100). Thatâs it. If it meets the requirements then the summit goes in the list. The list is merely of summits that meet those requirements. Nothing more, nothing less. It is nothing to do with whether you can access them, nothing to do with granting you permission to ignore any local laws. It is a list of P150/P100 summits. Period (as they say).
Rules about private / public land, access rights etc. vary around the world. The rules vary within the UK. So SOTA rules say you, the activator, must ensure you can visit the summit legally. It doesnât say how you find out that information. It places the onus fairly and squarely on the activator. Itâs nothing to do with SOTA and / or the MT if you break the law, weâre not encouraging you. Far from it, we have a rule saying YOU have to be ensure itâs LEGAL and we have reiterated this rule many times in public.
The two things work nicely, a list of summits and rule saying itâs your responsibility to check you are legally OK to access that summit. This is not rocket science, this is not something that is difficult to comprehend and understand.
So the MT will continue add summits that have free an open access, summits on sensitive military locations, summits on religious grounds, summits on private land etc. The access rights are nothing to with whether a summit is P150 or P100. The access rights, are ânot my monkeys, not my circusâ to quote a recently popular expression. Anyway, access rights can and do change and we are not tracking them. That is something for the activator to keep in mind.
In the case of this summit, where in my opinion, a campaign is being mounted to have it removed, there will be no changes. It has the required prominence to be listed, therefore it is listed.
If Thomas, you think that previous activators have broken the law then you should contact the AM for this area and point out your concerns to him. He can decide how he wishes to deal with your complaint.