A bit of History

I first became aware of this problem, in 2005, when after months of driving past a field I found out which farmer the field belonged to and got in touch. I have to say all the farmers I spoke to in this was very helpful and friendly. As I told the farmer more about what we wanted to do he was very positive about working with us and then came the BUT.

The new subsidy regulations were coming into force and he didn't want to loose his subsidy. I have some experience with legaleese so set about reading up on the reg's and found that as a sport we fell through a gap in the guidelines. I wrote to the rural payments authority (RPA) with a description of the sport complete with pictures. As the changes were coming in the answer took several months of follow up but finaly got a response. The answer I got back was that we were classified as a "Motorsport". At that point I dropped it, and started looking for another suitable site.

For the last 18 months I have been working with a local aerodrome, who have been extraordinarilly open minded, to allow kites in a corner of their field and we are currently waiting for the right conditions for our first flight (Sywell Kite Club). The issue has been niggling at the back of my mind for almost 2 years and now I've decided to stop burbling into my beer and try to do something about it.........hence this campaign.