New covid restrictions

[al78]

Spanish flu, Asian flu, Swine flu, and Hong Kong flu pandemics lasted 2-3 years.

Influenza pandemics are not the only pandemics, hence HIV is still a global pandemic (and endemic in sub-Saharan Africa)

Coronavirus is arguably much closer to flu in its characteristics and method of spread than HIV, hence why I used the various strains of flu as a rough guide to how long this pandemic will last. If the two recent vaccine breakthroughs do prove to be successful we will be out of this pandemic in another year, or at least well on the way out. If the vaccines are not successful, the pandemic will end socially, since there is no way people are going to tolerate this level of restrictions on their lives indefinitely.

[al78]

So is there any easy way to ID the local authority area of a certain hill?

Google Earth shows county boundaries, using this combined with Streetmap should tell you what hill a county is in (or whatever the Scottish call Perthshire, Invernessshire etc).

[Sunset tripper]

It made me wonder just as a matter of interest, what is the easiest way to find out what local authority area certain hills are in?

The zoomed out Walkhighlands maps do show them as someone suggested. Another way that lets you get more detail is to use Google maps, and type in the local authority name in search. Doesn't work for the cities, but pretty useful for the boundaries elsewhere. Many mountains are on the boundaries, unsurprisingly.

e.g.

Perth and Kinross

Cheers Paul - good info and a handy tool.

Thanks to Kendrum, jmarkb & al78 also.

[Sunset tripper]

To give a practical example of the council boundaries thing, I live in Stirling but most of the Ochil walking I do (two or three times a week) is in Clackmannanshire. The council boundary on the A91 is between Blairlogie and Menstrie, and driving east five miles from the boundary gets me - very conviniently - to the foot of Upper Mill St in Tillicoultry (I've measured it!) Hence what I've been doing is to drive there (I've decided I can allow myself the extra 0.2 miles round the corner to the usual parking bays) and then head into the hills. If I wanted to walk deeper into Clacks, or even right over into Perth and Kinross, that'd be fine (particularly as both those areas are, like Stirling, level 3 just now), given that I'd be walking back to the car in due course.

That's an interesting take on it Dave and probably right. I was looking at the 5 miles being as the crow flies, not the driving distance.

Also interesting that if you start in your own area you can go as far as you like which opens up a lot of options for the diehards. Apparently it's been clarified that there is no limit to the distance you go out of your area if you start and finish within it.
This means (very keen) folk from Glasgow City can cycle the 2 to 3 hours to the foot of Ben Lomond climb the hill and then back to Glasgow on the bike
I had thought a trip like that was a loophole in the guidance but maybe because of the small numbers who would attempt such an outing it is possibly considered as ok.
A trip from Glasgow to Ben Lomond maybe not something many would take on at this time of year, but with the real possibility of these restrictions coming and going for quite sometime it might look like a great day out in the spring.

[Walkinmyfootsteps]

I’m unsure of the current restrictions imposed by the administration in Scotland. If going by what I have read in this thread you can travel as far as you like by bike. Does this then mean you have to return within the same day or are you allowed to wild camp? Just looking at options. Distance and weather would be a factor but wondering just how practicable it would be to get back into the hills sometime soon without breaking any lockdown restrictions that have been imposed.

[Marty_JG]

are you allowed to wild camp?

I very much want to know the answer to this too, I've looked at everything I can find and cannot find an answer.

[Dave Hewitt]

This means (very keen) folk from Glasgow City can cycle the 2 to 3 hours to the foot of Ben Lomond climb the hill and then back to Glasgow on the bike

That will have been done a fair bit historically, in non-Covid times - although as you say it probably isn't particularly appealing in the second half of November! I'll be interested to see what my keen-cyclist neighbour does during the next wee while - he's a 100+ mile a day kind of guy.

I'm hoping that the five-miles-beyond thing for outdoor exercise still applies even with the Level 4 restrictions - no reason why not, people still need to keep sane and fit. If I can keep getting along to Alva or Tillicoultry for Ochil outings that'll keep me happy - and it'd be silly if that was deemed illegal, given that Alva is only three miles beyond the Stirling boundary and I can drive almost 20 times that far in the opposite direction, to Tyndrum, without any problem (not that I want to do that but I do want to go for walks from Alva, as I did today). If it was deemed verboten then parking at Blairlogie (just within Stirling council) and walking the extra three or four miles along would be an option but again it'd be a silly requirement - and anyway Stirling shut the Blairlogie car park last time, which was a ridiculous and generally very unhelpful thing to have done (Clacks by contrast kept their car parks open).

[gman]

Guidance is on the govt website, there's not much difference between levels 3 & 4 for travel.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-on-travel-and-transport/

[Dave Hewitt]

Guidance is on the govt website, there's not much difference between levels 3 & 4 for travel.

Suspect that'll change, though - quite aside from anything else the plan is to legislate on level 3 and 4 travel, rather than it being advice.

[Sunset tripper]

Guidance is on the govt website, there's not much difference between levels 3 & 4 for travel.

Suspect that'll change, though - quite aside from anything else the plan is to legislate on level 3 and 4 travel, rather than it being advice.

It sounded like the plan was just to put the travel guidance into law so shouldn't really be any difference for folk going along with the guidance.


The interesting thing will be how the law in Scotland will apply to folk from England after they come out of lockdown on the 2nd of December.
Even in the initial lockdown there was no strict travel restrictions on people in England travelling for exercise.
I wonder how the scottish law will apply to folk from other parts of the UK - areas where Scotland has no say what tier folk are in.

[Dave Hewitt]

It sounded like the plan was just to put the travel guidance into law so shouldn't really be any difference for folk going along with the guidance.

I hope you're right, but I have my doubts. All they need to do is to quietly remove that five miles thing from the new version and it'll make things a lot trickier for a lot of well-intentioned people. Let's see what it actually says in a couple of days' time.

[Marty_JG]

Police Scotland have made statements about enforcement. I'll cite so as not paraphrase:

We are asking people to take personal responsibility to do the right thing and remember the purpose of these measures is to aid the collective effort to protect the NHS and save lives by preventing the virus from spreading. As we have consistently said throughout the pandemic, the vast majority of the public have been complying with the regulations. The policing approach we adopted from the outset of the pandemic will not change. Our officers will continue to engage with the public, explain the legislation and guidance, and encourage compliance. We will use enforcement as a last resort where there is a clear breach of the legislation.

We should all bear that in mind, both the technicalities of the law and the "real" reason. The spirit. We're being asked not to take the ****, and in fairness and not taking the **** is the default here.

[Giant Stoneater]

It's nearly 9 months since Covid kicked off and in all that time we are still none the wiser over the rules and regulations over travel,we are still looking for ways to exploit the rules and no wonder since there has been confusion every time something is published.

Re cycling, you could cycle from Glasgow to the Luss Hills to do Doune Hill,i have done that a few times.

[Lightfoot2017]

So is there any easy way to ID the local authority area of a certain hill?

Google Earth shows county boundaries, using this combined with Streetmap should tell you what hill a county is in (or whatever the Scottish call Perthshire, Invernessshire etc).

'Local authority areas' according to the legislation.

Cosla has a useful map on its website as I recall.

[gman]

There's a draft of the new law on the scot gov website

https://www.gov.scot/publications/health-protection-coronavirus-restrictions-and-requirements-local-levels-scotland-regulations-2020-amendment-regulations/

Reasonable excuses to enter/leave Levels 3 & 4:

(t) exercise outdoors, provided that the exercise—
(i) is not organised, and
(ii) starts and ends at the same place, which place must be—
(aa) in the local government area in which the person lives, or
(bb) within 5 miles of such local government area,