UKH

https://www.pyb.co.uk/statement-from-plas-y-brenin-national-outdoor-centre-...

Stop stirring shit.

I'm sure they are doing everything in their power to comply with regulations and have discussed their options with all the relevant authorities. It's not like they are some tin pot organisation operating on the fringes, they are a large well respected organisation that employ a whole load of people.

With all the challenges they are facing at the moment they don't need this.

Hi Gethin

You are entitled to your opinion

I  myself feel that the safety of North Wales residents is a higher priority than PYB honouring their bookings, the lockdown regulations are there for a reason I.e. to protect us from Covid and even stricter lockdowns.

I have been a customer of PYB since the 80's so have no bad feeling towards them as an organisation. I do however feel strongly that they are prioritising themselves over the safety of the local community.

PYB exists purely for teaching people safety so I’m sure they are better placed than most to assess the situation. Also, I have found that climbers and outdoors people in general have more common sense than the average Joe, PYB safety measures plus their clients own common sense and awareness says to me that undertaking a course there would be perfectly safe.

20 odd years since I did a course there, they provided me with exactly what I needed training wise and I’ve no reason to believe anything is different.

You are right in questioning it though Sl@tehead, ask the question, gather people’s thoughts and opinions and re-assess. If only our governments did the same thing hey? 😊

I think a bit of common sense and evaluating if students in a bubble at an outdoor center will be more of a disease spread risk than say self employed zero hours delivery Drivers , Amazon or even those picking and packing your food .

Five weeks ago I was working in wrexham and Llangollen  and the town centres were rammed with hundreds of folks without masks eating on the scheme. Blame this not a few dozen folks on outdoor courses.

They arent opening the place generally and so, with a bit of planning to hide all the office/kitchen staff away, anyone visiting is going to be pretty isolated from the outside community anyway.

So some exposure for the instructors but again something which can be controlled fairly effectively.

Leaving a bit of care when fuelling the car visiting and giving up on any icecream stops not that its suited to them now anyway.

They are not breaking any rules.  They are not that stupid; they come under the "educational" "get-out".

What is valid for you to question is if they should voluntarily close.  The question would be has anyone else, and what would be the effect?  I think negligible.

Of course they do not need this, but its an interesting question whether or not people can legally travel to a site in Conwy for this.

The statement seems to say how ace PYB is but not why people can legally travel there?

Shooting people for asking a question is never good, it implies you do not like the answer.

I can't imagine an organisation as reputable as PyB not checking their legal position first.

I must say I’m surprised and disappointed that they are continuing given their location within a local lockdown area.
 

Presumably once on site customers will only be travelling around the Conwy County area rather than heading to the River Dee for whitewater, Gogarth and Tremadog for climbing and limiting their hillwalking to areas with Conwy too? 
 

Personally I feel that it makes a mockery of BMC statement made earlier in year and is very much a one rule for us mentality rather than following the spirit of legislation and guidance. 
 

I can, I see big organisations mess up all the time, I am surprised at your lack of imagination.

I had to drive through the ogwen to get to work this morning and there was a raf mountain rescue van in the lay ye under tryfan and people in matching red goretex on milestone buttress surely the raf should be an example and not be climbing here c'mon guys it can't be 1 rule for you.... 

How do you know they weren't rescuing someone from Conwy climbing there?

We don’t but I’d put money on that they weren’t. 
 

To be honest the legislation is pretty vague and drakeford hasn’t really cleared it up much during his latest statement. North Wales is arguably a different beast to south with much larger counties and much more transient movement between them for work, shopping and education for a variety of reasons primarily down to transport links. As an isolated example the nearest shops to me are in another county and in the same town my o/h lives in. Should I stop seeing them but go to the shop there- the same shop that they go to? Of course not. Their children go to school in a different county again and I work in a different again. That’s 4 counties across the region that I would travel to legitimately yet I couldn’t go to Llanberis. However someone in Yorkshire could? Madness. 
 

It's a mess all round.

I have 7 separate courses (navigation, foraging, outdoor safety) in the calendar for the period covered by this local lockdown. Each course is less than 10 participants and takes place entirely outdoors where people have room to socially distance, and have been restructured to accommodate this.

Mountain Training advice suggests that I can carry on running courses like these (outdoors, education/training rather than activity) for participants who live outside of my county. But my local council (Denbighshire) says that outdoor training does not satisfy the criteria for 'education'.

So the courses are running, but only for those few participants who live in Denbighshire.

I would challenge anyone in North Wales to find a definitive and consistent explanation of how outdoor training businesses can currently operate. 

I don't but seeing as there were only 3 people on rowan tree must be a small rescue

That will be the thing occasionally known as 'work'.

Work so they have to go to milestone? How about heading up the slabs which is in gwynedd just a dick move if you ask me

Idwal Slabs is in Conwy. The boundary runs down Idwal Stream.

OK go to the pass or tremadog or gogarth

Lockdown restrictions don't apply if you're working. 

I imagine the guys from RAF MRT were doing training, so were there perfectly legitimately. 

The travel restrictions based on arbitrary lines on a map seem mad to me. 

I can understand them wanting to restrict travel between areas with a high level of cases and areas with a low.  However what I can't understand is wanting to keep people in individual counties in a contiguous area, particularly in the Valleys.  Wales seems fixated with this.  Why not consider a contiguous high infection area as one?