Thataway wrote:ScraggyGoat wrote: Mountain rescue had the choice wether to go on the hill, and hill goers could have made their decisions accordingly. In my view the ban was most likely illegal, it was brought about in haste and then kept for political reasons.
In what way do mountain rescue teams have a choice?
They do not have a choice.
It was to protect them that the ban was introduced.
Unless I missed something there was never a specific ban on hillwalking.
Hillwalking was effectively barred first by "stay at home" regulations and then, for the vast majority of Scots, by travel restrictions.
Lots of people on Hillwalking social media tried to justify this by postulating that it was to "protect MR"...."protect the NHS"...."prevent fuel station transmission" etc etc. However the reality is that hillwalking was not banned, it was simply
never specifically exempted from generic restrictions.
Rather than to protect MR, it was (I presume), to maintain a simple, uncluttered, easy to understand message without easily abused get out excuses.
The negative effects in physical and mental health are things that can be easily smudged or ignored in any post hoc analysis.