longshot possibly, but does anyone know if there is a ballpark figure for the cost of building a cycle trail (singletrack rather than a sustrans type thing) based on a metre/km etc – or can put me onto someone who may be able to offer a suggestion?

terrain is open land with easy access and no tree felling if that makes any difference. its for a wee dig at the local council so best guesstimate would be fine as i just want to make a point.

my emails in my profile if anyone would rather contact me that way or pass on an email. thanks.

I remember reading £5-£10 per m, but not sure if that was based on voulenters digging etc.

Obviously depends on the ground as well, a minidigger could probably dig 100's of meters of 2ft wide 8" deep trench to be filled with hardcore a day in open land, thow trees into the equation and you've got issues with digghing out roots etc.

more like £100+++++ per metre.

£100? I don't see how that works, Unless someone charges ridiculous labour costs.

Standard quoted price was £10 per metre for easy stuff, expect this to be nearer £20 per metre nowadays – going up as far as £50/£60 per metre for wet/poor ground and steep/"extreme" sections that require stone armouring.

thanks, i can work with those figures.

A few years ago, Pete Laing told me that the original (pre jumptastic) Spooky Wood on the red at Glentress cost £3-5 per metre and that it wasn't tough enough to stand up to the use it saw. He also said that the newer 7Stanes such as Kirroughtree were spending more like £15 per metre. That was about 5 or 6 years ago.

It very much depends on how you;re going to go about building.

Contractor built trails can obviously be fairly easily priced subject to variables such as ground conditions, topography, access etc.

Volunteer built trails are another thing altogether and whilst on paper are cheaper you need to factor in the limitations on hand built trails and the significant additional time it takes to build.

Presumably you're trying to rebutt statements made by the council that htem empoloying a contractor will exceed a budget that's been set or something along those lines?

At the rate I can dig, I can easily see how it would cost £100 a metre.

Someone should design a machine for this, like one of those things they use for doing the roads. A little mechanical train of genius to automate the process.

I hear that 50pounds per metre on good ground is the norm, could be up to 3times that depending on material used.

Natural trails rock. Stop building trailcentres now!

+ 1 mcmoonter – certainly in scotland

local trailbuilding group where i used to live wanted to turn some of my favorite natural trails into a trail center ….. made my point and left that group !

Gav – willing to say where in Kernow you have in mind for this project (out of interest)?

🙂

I'm sure I read somewhere that the Haldon Ridge ride Red trail was £21.60 per metre – try ringing the FC.

Dalby cost about £500,000, and has about 50k of trails…

I will assume half that distance is made up of fire road, or existing trails:

£500,000 / 25,000 = £20/metre.

Got this in late 2008 from FE:

… As you say how long is a piece of string, but given a trail width of average 1.0m (that would develop down too a line of 500mm in a couple of years) and the contractor has to supply all the stone you start at £15/m. A bit less if he can win material on site and amore if the site is remote, wet or poor access. Don't forget site prep costs such as felling and clearing and of course signage, but that figure should include normal drainage.

Think it includes mobilisation and site set up but as he says, not preliminaries. However, it sounds like you might not have many.

To make things affordable I would do a combined strategy of fully armoured where necessary, sirt where possible, colunteer built in places and utilise existing (if they do) to save on metreage.

Don't think that rate includes for fancy stuff like walking diggers etc.

no project i'm afraid so those in the west please do not get excited!

its a pretty longwinded story with many facets, but the long and short is that across the penwith moors is a really nice ridgeway route of about 12miles. its popularised as the 'tinners way'. problem is that it, along with a lot of the moors themselves, is becoming increasingly imapassable due to accelerated erosion after the last few wet years – it rains, it gets muddy, horses destroy the surface and motorbikes (ridden illegally) then tear a groove that becomes a stream and then a gully. and you've also got uncontrolled gorse growing over sections.

i've ridden extensively up there for over 10years now and i've never known it so unrideable, which is a huge shame because with ocean views on 3 sides and many stone circles it is a lovely place.

in the local paper last week was a piece on a group of (shall we say) 'arty types' who have been given 10k to go to schools to do workshops, write poetry, press flowers and other random b@llshite all in the name of supposedly exploring the communities along the tinners way.

fair enough its a great idea to help build awareness of the route, but when the opening section is actually closed (3ft deep gulley from last summers floods), the next two moor crossings are uncyclable/unwalkabale deep mud unless exceptionally dry conditions prevail, the following moorland section is overgrown with gorse – get the idea – you have to wonder whether the cash could be better spent hence my initial question.

so for all the good it will do i'm going to have a rant in the paper because its so bl@@dy frustrating and annoying!

the average quotes from contractors i use are about 8 per metre for a sub soil path and about 30pm for a gravel track (50mm DOT type 1, no terram)….ish

you have to wonder whether the cash could be better spent hence my initial question.

It's unlikely that whatever funding they accessed could have been used to upgrade the route into a nice mountain bike trail for you.

God forbid that kids should get engaged with their local area and history in a creative way eh?

I can understand your frustration but I think you are barking up the wrong tree.

don't get me wrong, i do not for one minute think that kids should not engage in their local area – but i know from experience (as in my kids being involved) that the majority of these projects locally are utter disorganised drivel cashing in on the lottery cash cow.

i also have, based on working to get a local skatepark built and also campaigning for traffic calming, a very good understanding of funding and know full well that the cash for 'workshops' would ever be spent on the actual thing itself.

but, there is a tree there to be barked at and i'm the sort of grumpy git who will growl.

you could consult Spons for a quide but that woudl include labour.