So, in the face of continued misrepresentation and a lack of communication from the council, accompanied by a very unsavoury 'letter to the editor' by one of their workforce we have again written to Cllrs Sword and Purse asking for the one thing we have consistently asked for and been denied - Open dialogue between us, them and Natural England.

Below is the correspondence - We don't hold out much hope of a response!

It was interesting to hear your pre-prepared statement to BBC Radio Essex on 
Monday 10th July, which stated:

"...The council leader and cabinet member for environment recently met with the 
riders to listen to their concerns and to try and find a way forward. Communication between the council and the riders has continued."

Please could you show me where this communication has continued. This is my 6th unanswered communication since our meeting and there has been no further engagement with us other than a blanket 'No' from Cllr Purse and two standard complaint responses which are, much like the prepared statement, a 'cut and paste' from each other.

We have consistently and continually asked for one thing - Open dialogue between ourselves, the council and Natural England to try and resolve this issue.

Natural England are willing - Their last communication to us (provided to you previously) encourages us to continue dialogue with yourselves as they need the landowner to trigger the process for Natural England to look at management plans that would enable riding to continue without negative impact to the SSSI.

Obviously, we are more than willing and we have worked tirelessly to provide 
research and evidence to support our request.

Which just leaves Harlow Council... and for the record I do not feel one 30-minute
conversation constitutes that continued communication that you have inaccurately promoted in your statement.

We have again been put in a position where we need to defend ourselves against a person working under the direction of the council. This time it is a volunteer for the biodiversity team who has written to Your Harlow, insinuating that our group of riders have been vandalising barriers that have been erected. Letter to Editor: Concerns over vandalism in Risden Woods - Your Harlow

I should remind you that in our meeting of 5th June, we highlighted to you that the public had already started to remove these posts.

Aside from this being a clear breach of any code of conduct that I would assume 
your volunteers would need to abide by, it’s also factually inaccurate and once again leaves us in a position where members of staff under your responsibility are stirring up hatred towards our community. In my previous email, we have escalated to you the intimidating behaviour of another staff member, a fact that you continue to ignore and by virtue of this would be seen to be allowing such behaviour to continue.