THE banning of trail bikes and 4x4s vehicles on many country tracks in Worcestershire and Herefordshire has moved a step closer with the third reading of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill in the Commons.

"At a stroke the Government has effectively criminalised the active recreation of thousands of law abiding people by removing vehicular rights from green lanes used by vehicles for a hundred years," said Ian Packer of the Trail Riders Fellowship.

"What will this urban perspective Government ban next? Shooting is already in their sights and fishermen be warned."

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 a Byway Open to all Traffic.

In addition the law 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," Mr Packer said.

"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.

"This overuse will lead to further closures and more concentration in honey-pot areas. 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."

He maintained the new law would not mean the end of trail bikes and other vehicles on rights of way.

This "new law may eliminate all legal and law abiding citizens and their vehicles but the illegal 'scramblers' and yobs will be unaffected by the new legislation", he said.

"They are already illegal and will no doubt continue to use their untaxed, uninsured, untested vehicles but without the limits that legal TRF members and other governing bodies imposed by the presence of their members in the countryside. The TRF foresees an expansion in illegal use as legal outlets are removed."