Why review the Byelaws

Legal, practical and technological developments have all combined to cause the review of all the MOD byelaws. Some of the main issues are as follows:

• Changes in the operational use of a range may have changed the range danger area rendering the byelaws out-of-date
• Changes in rights of access to the countryside in England and Wales, particularly as a result of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act (2000).
• Changes to access in Scotland. There is a statutory requirement in the Scottish Land Reform Act (2003) for all byelaws to be reviewed. There is a statutory requirement to then change byelaws to meet the requirements of the Scottish Outdoor Access Code.
• Changes in de-facto public access need to be considered and incorporated in the byelaws if appropriate.
• Voluntary Land Registration has resulted in an examination of title issues and a check that MOD is operating byelaws on land which it owns, leases and licences.
• Improvements in mapping technology and a relaxation in security concerns mean that we can produce better plans to attach to byelaws to make them clearer. (We have noted the comments by judges that additional clarity in mapping and boundary markers would be desirable in certain cases).
• We need to make small changes to some of the standard wording to match changes in other legislation and refer to new MOD operational structures.
• We need to clarify our control over vehicles on MOD private land and to clearly define our borders with public highways.
• A number of sites are subject to designations under the provisions of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (SOCAP). MOD wishes to align the Byelaws with the SOCAP designations.
• As part of the review MOD is seeing if it can align Byelaws with other statutory instruments such as Dockyard Port Orders. This will ensure greater clarity on where one set of rules on access apply and when other legislation applies.