Is it open again yet?

dunno …but Bracknell Council seem to do a pretty good job of demonstrating why local authorities shouldn’t run things like the Swinley Cafe.

It was “closed” weeks before the signs said it would be and even when it’s open the offering is pretty poor.

None of the machines in the car park work for contactless card payments even though they are supposed to. And despite the considerable revenue generated from parking their doesn’t seem to be any noticeable investment in CCTV despite pretty regular thefts of bikes and car break ins.

The council didnt run the cafe (Not saying they’d do a better job) and the contactless payment works for me… just sayin’.

Was closed on Sunday.

Save yourself the effort, overpriced, mingin tea and cakes form costco.

benpinnick – contactless doesn’t seem to have been working for a while on quite a few of the machines. When trying to pay for parking by contactless you press the button to add hours, then press the green button to confirm. The machine display then says “press green button for contactless” but when you press it, the display then says “transaction cancelled”.

This was the same on all the machines I tried – and other people trying to use them for contactless were having the same problem…

I was there on new years day and a fair few of the machines weren’t working at all. I’d agree that the cafe is pretty awful (not great food, expensive, extremely slow) when it is open, and weirdly difficult to get in to.

Yep. Still closed. Luckily I found a half full packet of minstrels hidden from the kids so all good in the end.

I’m there next week for the first time with a mate. Will take food and a stove!

How much is parking? Will take the right change

Trails running ok at the moment?

cakes form costco

Costco cakes are bloody lovely.

Parking is two pounds for four hours or four pounds for all day.

They should be able to make a killing there. My first visit the other week and I was struggling to park. An annual ticket of £100 seemed a bit steep though.

I should think the cafe could make money all year round. Even in the middle of winter the car parks packed. It could really do with an extension and a re-fresh. Currently it looks tiered and it’s a poor layout. Plenty of scope to make some nice home made cakes and the like.

Scamper- £100 seems reasonable if you’re local, or have kids. That’s only 25 all day trips.

just ride there … Bracknell is bikepath capital! 🙂
flapjacks pack small 😆

What Flybywire said, I used to ride form Wokingham with only a short road section.

My only gripe is that the council don’t fund the trails, just the car park. But take all the money. So if I do drive I use the free car parks nearby (Crowthorne car park or just residential parking in Bracknell)

Didn’t realize that! I thought all the money from parking goes to the Crown Estate, who then help fund trail building and development? Partly why I park there and don’t give others my ticket when I leave. Maybe I have to rethink this if none of the money goes back into the trails.

Realistically for me it’s 50 2 hour visits a year with the nippers. I know it’s changed but Cannock Chase used to be £50 and £15 of that went directly to the trails. Most of time i’ll just be riding in.

Parking’s cheap then, thanks

Trails all open at the mo?

Oh great, was planning on taking my 7yo for a day trip on Monday. Blue trail and cafe + swimming pool over the road.

Just checked and swimming pool is closed, cafe is closed.. hmm

There was a thread on the Trailteam Swinley FB page (they’re the guys who build & maintain the trails), where someone said the café re-opened yesterday.

Looks like quite a bit of work going on to develop some new trails too – good effort from the TTS gang!

Some time ago we figured it was so badly run that we would FOI to see how much more viably it could be run

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/141662/response/350637/attach/3/Heritage%20Centre%20Coffee%20Shop%20Lease.pdf

Personally I would love to see facilities there hands of a certain local comminity interest company that would pump it back into the trails.