I visited Epping forest for an XC ride on Sunday, parking near the famous Carls Tea Hut. I was quite shocked to find what had been done to it by courtesy of bulldozers and acres of tarmac and senseless planners.

In their great wisdom it seems the powers that be decided to widen the road strip running past Carls tea hut with nice smooth super slick black tarmac. They have done this at the expense of the parking area.

What the planners failed to do, was provide enough room for visitors to the forest to access the rear of their vehicles without encroaching on the road and risking being run down!

Forest visitors often have bikes , dogs, kids in the back of their cars and need some small area behind the vehicle to exit. It would be impossible for any van or car with rear door exit to safely drop passengers there. Reversing in is not an option in most spaces due to the ditch. Disabled visitors with cars with rear wheelchair lifts will have big problems.

Anyway the nice smooth wide black tarmac will provide a nice opportunity for wheel spinners to show their tricks at weekends and push up average speeds just where its dangerous. Leaving the place as it was would have saved money and been safer. Why do we need to tarmac our forests? Surely these guys should have a bit more sense?

…rant over!

IME when I was at uni there was one rather large bunch of students who were first in the union bar in the morning when it opened in the morning. They would stay in there all day and later in the evening they would still be there being thoroughly obnoxious to everyone in the near vercinity and puking all over the floor. Then at the weekend they would really get going on the drinking front. They were all doing a city planning degree.

sounds just the sort of planning these guys did…looks just like they had a few dozers and lorries of tarmac spare from the olympic stadium and needed to get rid of it!

It’s going to be a nightmare when the summer finally arrives.

The old car park had loads of space to prepare the bike/chat before a ride. This will now be done standing in the middle of the road!

This isn’t good. I’m a regular there (although I haven’t been since it started raining 40 days and 40 nights ago – eh? oh hold on… and therefore haven’t seen these “improvements”) and although it doesn’t affect me as I ride up from home, I can see the issue.

Begs the question though, why not park the car the other way around (reversing into the space, which is also more fuel efficient btw) and unload on the strip of grass before the ditch – or has that gone too?

Hi Kryton. Room for reversing in depends which particular space and how big your car or van is. While you did that the nose of your car wld be in the road. As mentioned there is no place for post ride chats, plus no real need to have such a wide road right through a social hub in the middle of the forest. I think it will cause accidents. It also looks nasty. I’m surprised the horse riders haven’t complained too as they will fid it very unsuitable . Bring back the bumpy mud! Please

pics? / street view? I don’t fully understand

The “old” view: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?client=safari&rls=en&oe=UTF-8&redir_esc=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=high+beech+epping&fb=1&gl=uk&hq=high+beech&hnear=0x47d8980c90cc3339:0xfe440fc0a49a2d1a,Epping,+Essex&cid=0,0,17569474177869302208&ei=cLWqT_CkB5Cs8QOyrfCyDw&sa=X&oi=local_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CAoQ_BIwAA

You can see there is space around the cars to lay bikes about / chat etc

I suspect radioman is saying that the distance between front bumper / road edge is gone as the road is now wider- I saw the work several times mid project but not enough to appreciate what was going on.

Doesn’t sound good. There’s an Evans sportive in October or thereabouts which will massively exaggerate the day to day problem – where will the bikers mill about?

Back your car in.
Unload in safety behind it.
See that giant area of (safe) grass looking out towards Tottenham? Stand/sit on there for your pre/apre ride bike/cake admiring session.
Sorted.
Whats all the fuss about?