I AM writing to warn other countryside users - motorsport enthusiasts, mountain bikers, horse riders, in fact anyone who uses the rights of way network other than those on foot - of the threat they will shortly face.

Earlier this month the Government effectively criminalised the active recreation of thousands of law-abiding members of the public by removing vehicular rights from green lanes used by vehicles for a hundred years.

The new law bans all recreational vehicles, including trail bikes and 4x4s, from all rights of way not already recorded on the definitive map as "byway open to all traffic". This law also gives National Park Authorities the power to impose traffic regulation orders on byways in National Parks.

The law will, in effect, ban trail bikes and other vehicles from the majority of unsurfaced roads that they have peacefully explored since the invention of the internal combustion engine at the turn of the last century. The remaining legal byways are so few and far between that there will be no viable way of linking them together to make a day trip.

The result will be that bikes and 4x4s drive up and down the same route rather than making one brief passage in a day or even week.

Only five per cent of trails allowed vehicles in the first place. Walkers were amply served by 95 per cent of rights of way which were already vehicle-free, and also the new Right to Roam but this was not enough it seems - their militant leaders want it all to themselves.

This new law will eliminate all legal and law abiding citizens and their vehicles but the illegal "scramblers" and yobs will be unaffected by the new legislation. They are already illegal and will no doubt continue to use their untaxed, uninsured, untested vehicles.

Matthew Wedgwood,

Derwent Close,

Elvington, York.

Updated: 10:10 Thursday, October 20, 2005