Lifted this from the Hallam Riders group website, anyone know which bridleways are getting "surfaced" here…

"High all. There are a number of urgent consultation meetings planned. If you want your say, please attend because after the work is done it's no use complaining!

The "steps" leading up from the corner of lodge lane are in the process of being made safe. If anyone wants an oppinion on what is happening make sure you look this weekend 8 & 9th Aug. We may have a party to dig this out further quite soon. Contact Rhiannan or Jonathan

Monday 10th Aug at The Top of Wymingbrook Drive at 1pm
Discussion with the Wildlife Trust and their contractor re-cutting back of overgroath on the top half of Wymingbrook drive down to the junction

Tuesday 11th Aug at Redmires Rd – top of the bridleway which comes out by Stan Marsdens farm 2.30pm
This bridleway is going to be made safe and then cleared down to foxholes lodge!!! Hallam Riders Grouphave been asked to help!! This is great news!!
Wednesday bottom of Wymingbrook Drive in the car park near Foxholes 2pm
meeting with yorkshire water re clearence of the bottom half of Wymingbrook drive. "

Info on this site.
http://www.hallamridersgroup.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=191

Looks like this group of Horse riders have the close ear of those who can do work to Bridleways and are forging ahead making them "safe"…

it makes me laugh, round here it always the horseriders before any other user group complaining about the state of bridleways….it's like horses can't handle the terrain……A horse is a very capable beast with a confident rider on board..

Reading more. This group have been very successfull. Most of the bridleways in Rivelin valley area, and now quite a lot in places like Porter brook are getting surfaced. Thats a lot of funding….I wonder where there getting that from ?

with a confident rider on board

There's a riding school above Fulwood, so I guess there might be a few learners around.

From speaking to a couple of Sheff council transport types I know socially, it seems they don't 'get' mountain biking, one of them (a road cyclist as it happens) quoted a load of blather about the importance of 'access' when I asked him about the Clough Lane resurfacing (the fact it's so steep no cyclist but a mountain biker would ever use it passed him by completely).

This happened to all the byways SW of Bath a while ago, all the surfaces were 'improved' which completely ruined what were some nice little loops.

So fight it if you can.

The 'Lodge Lane' work has been finished – They've laid loads of broken brickwork down on a short section by the 'Gayby'.

I guess Wyming Brook work is just cutting back the undergrowth, which TBH is pretty overgrown at the bottom.

At a guess the Redmires Road work will be the bit running from the 3 Merry Lads / Sportsman pub that joins the footpath / bridleway – I expect this will be infilled with crushed bricks.

Seems to have been happening quite a bit recently.

So fight it if you can.

The trouble is, councils have a legal responsibility to maintain the highway – so the byways that get complained about will probably get to the top of the list, and unless they have no money will at some point get done. I don't understand how in Sheffield's case they have the money for sanitising bridleways on the urban fringe, but can't afford to upkeep the main roads properly, but apparently the money comes from different budgets.

Everyone I've ever spoken to that works for the council thinks only in terms of the burocracy and paperwork that surrounds all these issues, and not about the reality on the ground.

Around where I live (cambridgeshire) the councils got a lot of money for flood defences which they have suddenly had to spend or lose it

There are fixed things on what they can spent it on and have flattened a whole heap of paths and bridleways by way of "improving drainage"

Im guessing thats whats happening to you

They have the money and must spend it but theres no sense in what they can and cant do with it

Just a thought

I figure they've got to do something with all those buildings they've knocked down on the Moor

A horse is a very capable beast with a confident rider on board..

Dunno if it's the rider or the horse, but some of them seem to dislike going over mud, and have widened mashed up sections of trail dramatically in places like the top of Black Down in the Mendips. When I mentioned this to one local horse rider she got chippy and said that I was talking nonsense, and horses were perfectly "designed" for going through mud. I'm sure most of them are a bit more down to earth though.

Ed-O's article a couple of issues back summed it up really nicely – bridleway restoration is all too often something that destroys the landscape that brings people there in the first place.

ADH, at least the motocross boys have been using some of the sanitised bridleways round Bath, and there are now big gouges through the surfacing and the Terram that should widen into something interesting in, ooh, 20 years' time? 😐

if their bridleway resurfacing is anything like the quality of their road resurfacing it'll be back to lumps and bumps within a few months.

In the Cotswolds they sanitised one of the bridleways with a nice smooth surface laid over the top. Until the rains came that is – washed out the substrata, smooth top surface cracked up and fell apart making it far more dangerous that it had originally been.

Mr agreeable, if it was the horse choice in most cases they through what ever, but riders will choose to stick to firm ground hoping to keep grooming to a minimum though some nags are afeared by soft ground, though normally sand.

In short most are arrogant upper class people and feel they deserve the best and smoothest options, alot of these are also on the village/town council so will know which buttons to push to makes the byways smoother, mtb'ers will be low rate citizens whom won't the byways as gnarly as possible, and walkers just want it too themselves requardless of the surface.

Would attending Local Access Forums be any use for getting MTBers' two penneth in? There's a list of them here:

http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/ourwork/enjoying/accessforums/laf/default.aspx

From which I find out mine meets three times a year, usually in mid-afternoon on a weekday, and attendees including the local British Horse society busybody. 😐

Intresting link that Mr Agreeable…

It would be very worth while trying to get our viewpoint over. I don't see why a Bridleway surfacing project can't be made intresting. OK, Its not going to be rocky afterwards, but why so straight ? perhaps waterbars could be added that double up as nice drop offs that a horse can still walkover, Why do they have to be so straight, is it possible in the space of a bridleway to form two pathways… one all surfaced, the other left rough.

Those are the kind of points I'd like to raise with whoever fixes the Bridleways. I think there was a consulation like that on a bridleway near Hayfield and a "fun" part of it was left in place for MTBers.

The bridleways around Sheffield are smoother and flatter than the roads!

For some reason, though, in rivelin the footpaths are also being resurfaced, and I really can't understand who that benefits, as you have to be pretty able to manage the steepness of the trails.

They've already started tarmacing (is that how you spell it?) sections of the trans pennine trail, just down the road from me in Darfield, near Barnsley. It's not as though it was particularly gnarly before, and I used to use it regularly with the kid's trailer attached to my hardtail.
The drainage was a bit poor, so I dont know if that was the councils reasoning, but even so, it seems a bit of an overreaction. Still, at least (for the moment) its traffic free, but then again …

Some of the footpath surfacing in Rivelin is terrible. One of my favorite walks down a narrow footpath that heads into the woods on the bend at the bottom of lodge lane has been turned from a 1ft wide ribbon to a 5ft wide brick rubble based smooth track. I've no idea why I've never seen another soul in those woods whenever I walk through.

ok, so a lot of comment which is good. As mentioned, councils have a duty to ensure bridleways are in good condition, which is ace. However, the law specifically excludes bicycles from any considerations when it comes to surfacing.

What you need to do is show them why the method they are planning to use are bad. Will the surface stand up to the torrential rain that is becoming more prevalent? The "properly surfaced" bridleways near me certainly haven't. Will the newly routed path result in increased speed for cyclists, in turn entailing wither more user conflict or injury? That happened on the Pennine Bridleway, and as a result the path was rerouted to the suggestion made by cyclists

However, this all depends on cyclists getting involved. The real reason that councils pay attention to walkers and horse riders is that they are better organised. They have local associations, often run by retired people, who have the time to dedicate to organising things. They vitis places, see what they would like to be done, ask for it, cajole and threaten until it is done. Our local bridleway group has twice got the council to resurface paths by taking them to court: in bothe cases the council had tarmacced a trail, and the bridleway group made them take up a centre strip to provide better footing for horses, as tarmac is slippy in the wet. Both times the council backed down before it reached court, but legal proceedings had started. Until cyclists become more organised, the attention will be paid to the groups who make the most noise *to the council* (i.e. not on an internet forum)

Would another option be to get the ear of your local Rights of Way officer, and try and get mountain bikers' views across by proxy?

It wouldn't do any harm, but I can't see it having a great effect. ROW officers are accountable and need to justify any decisions. Also, they are not always in charge of surfacing.

Sheffield bridleways are now smoother and 'better' surfaced than most of our roads…

I've just been speaking to a fella and he says that some of the horse people he knows have complained about the resurfacing after its been done as its of such a low quality they are loosing grip as the surface just crumbles.

you cant win can you?

For some reason, though, in rivelin the footpaths are also being resurfaced, and I really can't understand who that benefits, as you have to be pretty able to manage the steepness of the trails.

As I said in my earlier post, based on conversations I have had with council officials, they seemingly often aren't really in a position to take sensible pragmatic decisions even if they had the nous to do so, as they have to jump through any number of bureaucratic hoops, i.e., ensure all the relevant boxes are ticked. Something called "access" is important, so if a path is resurfaced it must be to some standard.

Common sense thinking like the fact it is very steep so infirm people will not be able to manage the path no matter what the surface is like, doesn't seem to be within a council officer's remit, even if he could be bothered to think that way in the first place.

I went through this conversation with the guy about Clough Lane last year, and just went round in circles. The upshot being that they've now put speed limit signs up because obviously cyclists go faster now on the smooth surface, causing user conflict same as nbt mentions for the pennine bridleway.

They've also widened a lot of footpaths in Whiteley Woods and are looking like they will shortly resurface the main footpath to Forge Dam (other side from the bridleway), when what really needs doing is the canal and ponds above the path need to have all the leaks fixed, and then the drainage of the path sorted. But they almost certainly won't do that, they'll just make the path through the woods look like a path in a garden or park. Which will get washed away because of the leaks from the ponds above.

As nbt says, mtbers tend not to be organised like walkers and horsey groups. And then in the case of the Porter Valley there is also the Friends of the Porter valley group, there's probably one for Rivelin and other areas as well, and they've been campaigning for years to get the mill ponds fixed before they all crumble away but so far nothing has been done.

on a slight tangent, sheff council are working with singletraction and some of the wharncliffe guys to build a trail centre up somewhere close to the ski village.

i have my reservations about this but till its up and running i'll keep quiet

IME, "Friends of" groups tends to mean "we don;t live there but think it looks pretty and don't want any of those awful oiks coming round and spoiling it".

"Access" gets on my wick – it's not well understood. The law says that consideration must be given to "equal access", i.e. allowing wheelchair users and prams etc. It does not require a blanket implementation of the same thing everywhere, it requires a judgment be made: as you say, sometimes the judgement should be "this is not appropriate in this case"

The podge, is that what they've been doing scraping the side of the slag heap round from the Village, that would actually make a great course.

Rivlin valley friends of, did some path fixing with them a while back, seemed a good bunch of ppl. Never discussed mtbs really.

I think you need rights of access like Scotland, then you're not restricted to a limited number of paths.

sq225917 – The podge, is that what they've been doing scraping the side of the slag heap round from the Village, that would actually make a great course.

I don't think so, I think that's the starting of a new ski slope, its been well overdue as I first heard about that back in 98.

As for the track, i'm not too sure what's going on with it quite yet. I suspect we wont be seeing it any time soon. plus its a fairly small area so like i say i'm a bit sceptical. however they just had this http://www.parkwood-springs.org.uk/calendar/22912284466.ikml up there so something must be happening

I had a chat with the rights of way team today and they told me about this document…

http://www.sheffield.gov.uk/roads-and-transport/cycling-and-walking-and-prow/prow/open-access/rights-of-way-improvement-plan

This lists the improvement plan from 2007 to 2017! It doesn't really say that much about specifics however. The worrying bit of this is the timescale as it means what's already happened is only the start, 2 years down 8 to go…. that's a lot of paths that could be ruined!

Bridleways
There are 94 km. of public bridleway in the Sheffield area. This represents 12% of the total public rights of way network, whereas the national percentage is 20% of the total. The Council’s Milestones Statement (1999) recognises that the length of bridleways in the City, as a proportion of the network, is poor by comparison with the
national average. Bridleways provide for multi use i.e. footpath, equestrian, cyclist and, given that they are usually much more accessible than footpaths, they are sometimes more of benefit to disabled people, than rural footpaths which often have limited widths and restricting path furniture such as stiles etc. However, the network
11 is generally fragmentary and by its very nature tends to be located in the urban fringe/rural parts of the City. Concentrations of routes do exist particularly in the Council owned Blackamoor and Ecclesall Woods and near to established riding centres.

Policy 5. To identify areas of primary bridleway need. To resolve route
fragmentation and establish bridleway (multi-use) routes where possible.

Looks like they will be making some places into bridleways. lets hope so. i could give them some suggestions

The BW down the back of my house was resurfaced a few years ago with the crushed Egg Box. As others have pointed out, one good serious downpour and most of it ended up in the road at the end with a good deep trough down the path.

The next section has a tarmac FP 5m to the side of the BW which has never been surfaced and so is a permanent quagmire. No guesses for which path the horses use… They really don't like getting their shoes muddy do they.

The bit of work they are doing around lodge lane might involve the creation of 1 bridleway and the loss of 2 however! I'm waiting for some answers to confirm this but it certainly appears that way from works on the ground.

I wish I had more time to get into this at the moment, It would be nice to have a single MTB'rs group voice to speak to the council with. I guess exactly the original purpose of Singletraction… see how the next few months pan out. Got a good contact in the council now.

Simon, you know i'm up for helping on this. give us a shout any time

Spooky co-incidence but just got a mail from a guy we ride with and he has got a place on the access on the cities access forum. If there are any issues to be raised send them to henry.norman@sustrans.org.uk

He's a great guy and will be a really good representative.

Cheers.

Cycle Sheffield formerly Pedalpushers are the main campaigning group in Sheffield – which once again shows how fragmented the cycling world is!

http://axelrod.vs.mythic-beasts.com/sftp/ppfiles/ppnews.shtml

Cycle Sheffield and Sustrans are more likely to be for smooth and wide than against it as they have more of a recreational and commuting slant than mountain biking.

I dont think the LAF for sheffield has a mountain biker on it – prob should given Sheffield Council covers quite a lot of moorland riding in the Peaks including Cut Gate – which they part funded the restoration works. Although done by Moors for the Future (Not the National Trust!).

Ride the Peak was set up to represent mountain bikers in the Peak and adjoining area but its all a bit quiet at the moment.