Orienteering Access and Navigating Permissions: September Community Conversation
The September session in the SOA’s monthly online Community Conversations series focused on access to orienteering areas and navigating permissions. Arranging access for orienteering is often viewed as at best a drain on clubs’ organisational resources and at worth a headache that ultimately can thwart an event from happening. So how can clubs work best with landowners and tenants, to get good outcomes all round?
Building Good Relationships with Landowners
As for pretty much everything, building relationships is key – whether with individuals where land is in private hands or with employees as representatives of statutory or charitable organisations (councils, Forestry Land Scotland, RSPB, National Trust, MoD etc). Finding out who exactly to speak with can sometimes take a bit of detective work but persevere and engage positively: we are all ambassadors for our sport. There may be other land users to build relationships with too, to achieve good outcomes. Shared use is the norm, whether with the general public or with other specific interest groups (mountain bikers, archers, clay-pigeon shooters etc).
SOA advice is always to seek permission, for both events and training sessions, to protect orienteering’s reputation as a responsible sport, and to be absolutely clear for insurance purposes that there are no unusual or specific risks to take into account from other activities (such as forest harvesting), even if none are expected. This advice applies even if for training, participant numbers might be small enough to – in
theory at least – be covered by the Scottish Outdoor Access Code.
The jewels in the crown of orienteering areas are generally clustered in particular areas, and clubs in these have been very helpful in facilitating their usage by visiting clubs, e.g., for training weekends. The local club will almost always need to liaise with landowners around permissions itself rather than delegate to the visitors. Local clubs in this situation should be much appreciated for undertaking work to negotiate
and clear access, particularly when volunteer resources are stretched and quite possibly without anyone in a dedicated Access Officer role.
No one wants unnecessary paperwork, and requesting access through formal processes even for small training events might seem to be creating a burden. However, it it is very much up to the landowning individual or organisation how they wish to work. A phonecall might be very valuable in clarifying whether they do want forms regardless of the activity being requested or whether a phone-call to them will suffice. Again, build those relationships, and as early as possible in the event /training planning process so there is sufficient time for further follow-up as required. For example, where land is actually used by a subcontractor, the primary landowner may not know their plans for harvesting, stock and other uses. Conversely, having that initial conversation might provide wider intelligence about future activities in the
area to inform forward planning in helpful ways. Keeping channels open helps minimise tricky unexpected issues rearing their heads.
How SOA Can Support Clubs Around Access
We might consider orienteering an environmentally-friendly sport, given its low infrastructure needs. However, conservation regulations are significant hurdles to clear in many areas when seeking permission – whether due to bird life (ground-nesting, capercaillies and other rareties) or plant-life of natural-heritage significance. It’s frustrating when regulations don’t seem well aligned with reality, e.g., around
actual nesting seasons in a particular area, or in contexts where other users are seemingly unfettered (e.g., dogwalkers using multiple unofficial paths across areas, or restrictions apparently not applying to golf courses). Nikki Howard represents the SOA at the National Access Forum and engages to raise issues with a view to resolving them, so get in contact if your club is facing a particular challenge around access.
As well as advice and advocacy around access, SOA has templates for clubs to use when seeking permissions, for both events and for training sessions or other activities under the Resources – Land Access folder on the website. There are templates for Forestry Land Scotland event enquiry forms together with copies of the Event Master Agreement/ Schedule/ Rate Card in the Forestry Land Scotland Access information folder. There are also some style permission request letters should they be required in Resources – Land Access folder.
Many thanks to Nikki for convening the session, and to those who came along and if there are any queries on access please contact Nikki via nikki@scottish-orienteering.org for support.
Future Community Conversations
The next Community Conversation will be on Monday 6th October on the theme of “Club Development: Ensuring a Thriving Volunteer-Based sport” . See the SOA Community Conversations webpage SOA Community Conversations 2025 webpage for the sign-up link and more information will be available nearer the time. Contact Nikki via nikki@scottish-orienteering.org for any queries, or suggestions of topics you’d like to see included in the series as a future session focus.