Guidance required, AUTHORISATION LETTER REQUIRED FOR FAC

Hi,

I require some guidance, on being new to stalking, and trying to obtain my FAC, already hold shotgun cert. Although I put down land was to be acquired by puchasing stalking on various sporting estates, the fire arms officer phoned to say I require written permission from a land owner to shoot, this seems some what strange since I do not know which estates I shall be purchasing stalking from. Any idea's how I can achieve this?? CAN ANYONE HELP?
 
You will need to supply copies of confirmed bookings for "paid" stalking.

This is normal, accepted practise and referred to in the Home Office Guidelines.
 
You will probably have to provide a confirmed booking with an agent, Estate, landowner or shooting organisation before they will proceed with your application. That would be quite normal in order to justify the 'good reason' for acquiring a sporting firearm.

If however they are insisting that you must have your own land available before granting the FAC you should direct them to the following section of the HO guidance:

13.10 The named land need not be owned or
rented by the applicant, nor need they have
regular or automatic access to it. Farmers and
landowners may allow shooters to shoot on
their land, for payment or otherwise, on a
formal or informal basis. An applicant need
not always nominate a piece of land as
evidence of “good reason”, but in such cases
the applicant may be required, where possible,
to provide written evidence, for example from
a relevant organisation, a professional pest
controller or of a booking to shoot.
 
I had the same issue when my application was going through, they would not accept paid stalking as a reason without details of land as well, this was despite testimonials from people who I had stalked with on a professional "paid" basis, best you explain the situation to the estates and see if they can help in any way, its BS but then so is a lot of firearms law.
 
I had the same issue when my application was going through, they would not accept paid stalking as a reason without details of land as well, this was despite testimonials from people who I had stalked with on a professional "paid" basis, best you explain the situation to the estates and see if they can help in any way, its BS but then so is a lot of firearms law.

It's not the 'Firearms Law' that's BS, it's the way it's applied by the different forces with no consistency throughout the UK. If your force had applied Ch 13.10 of the Guidance correctly then you wouldn't have had any problem - were they robustly challenged on that point?
 
Hi,

I require some guidance, on being new to stalking, and trying to obtain my FAC, already hold shotgun cert. Although I put down land was to be acquired by puchasing stalking on various sporting estates, the fire arms officer phoned to say I require written permission from a land owner to shoot, this seems some what strange since I do not know which estates I shall be purchasing stalking from. Any idea's how I can achieve this?? CAN ANYONE HELP?
The simple answer is to purchase a days stalking with an estate and send a copy of the confirmed booking to the police, this is covered by and complies with the Home office guidance. Count yourself lucky that you do not live within the Hampshire Police area. Someone within their Licensing department (Name not disclosed but all locals will know who I mean) has a bit of a sense of humour. Apparently once I had been on the booked stalk my certificate was going to be partially revoked because I would have "used up" the requisite good reason. I pointed out that this would pre-empt further stalking trips. This made no difference to the FLO nor to the Chief Constable so I had to seek the advice and assistance of the Home Office to whom I must be grateful and the matter was resolved to my satisfaction. I do now however brief my MP whenever I apply for a variation as a precaution and much to his credit he takes an active interest in this sort of thing. Good luck & atb Tim
:old:
 
To all who offered advise, many thanks for the guidance, I shall certainly look at the route of booking a days stalking with an estate.
 
It's not the 'Firearms Law' that's BS, it's the way it's applied by the different forces with no consistency throughout the UK. If your force had applied Ch 13.10 of the Guidance correctly then you wouldn't have had any problem - were they robustly challenged on that point?
they were and held to their stance, in the end it was sorted out with a lot of help from IanF, for which I remain very grateful!
 
Kenny, TVP firearms are great fun aren't they. Who was your FEO? It would appear there has a been a change of guard at the office, so I'm hopeful of some more sensible decision making in future, I'm awaiting a variation to remove mentoring and restrictive land conditions, and to add 12 bore and .410 solid slug, and also to increase my ammunition holding to a sensible level, could be fun!
 
Kenny, TVP firearms are great fun aren't they. Who was your FEO? It would appear there has a been a change of guard at the office, so I'm hopeful of some more sensible decision making in future, I'm awaiting a variation to remove mentoring and restrictive land conditions, and to add 12 bore and .410 solid slug, and also to increase my ammunition holding to a sensible level, could be fun!
to be honest the FEO seems OK its the back office that seem to want to be awkward, I had a one for one during the summer that went through in 3 weeks and they were no problem at all, its just the land they seem to have a bee in their bonnet about.
 
No issues with mine - I showed the FEO an email confirming a booking, and that was it, job done, he didn't even ask for a copy to be made, and he even allowed me to buy 400 and keep 500 .243
Licence came back with my rimmy opened, and a letter saying that they would open my .243 in 6 months to a year.

That's Humberside police.
 
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