What happened in Sweden was that all the moors where sheep grazed were all planted with forest. Think north york moors and peaks covered in forestry planations.

Lets have a French style revolution and burn the forests! Or maybe not..!

They have been selling off quite a bit over the last few years, they actually own lots of small pockets of woodland as well as the bigger forests. Be interesting to see what does get sold. I can’t imagine the bike trails are going to be much of a commercial selling point though. Just hope a lot of the hardwork that’s been done by FC staff and volunteers doesn’t get bulldozed to make a few quid.

I imagine if this does go ahead there’ll be louder voices than ours complaining, there’s a lot of different groups using the forests recreationally.

Just hope a lot of the hardwork that’s been done by FC staff and volunteers doesn’t get bulldozed to make a few quid.

Amen to that. Bit worried about what this will mean for our sport in the UK, as the FC are generally one of the more tolerant landowners out there when it comes to people dicking about on bikes in their woods and giving them little or no financial return.

The more challenging side of the sport in particular could lose out if 50% of FC’s current holdings end up being managed by private companies. Think how many DH tracks are on FC land, and what a private owner would do in their shoes. 🙁

Perish the thought that MTBers might have to pay for custom-built facilities eh?

Some clarification on the scope of the review

Perish the thought that people might not have a choice any more. Having places where you can ride for free (or £2.50 car parking) is obviously great for the sport.

More to the point, I can’t imagine that private landowners will be up for opening loads of new pay-to-ride facilities. By all accounts it’s something people do for the love rather than the money involved.

Also while the FC do have to worry about people injuring themselves on their land, they effectively self-insure. Private owners can find that they have to stop an activity on their land just because their insurer decides not to cover it any more.

“Mr Agreeable – Member

Perish the thought that people might not have a choice any more. Having places where you can ride for free (or £2.50 car parking) is obviously great for the sport.”

Always thought myself that charging admission could be good for the sport, imagine the extra budget available if everyone paid £5 to ride at your local trail centre. It’s a pretty trivial cost, less than the price of a cinema ticket and almost certainly less than the cost of petrol to get there for most people, or the cost of the food you’ll eat on the day… Yet so many people even dodge the negligible parking fees 🙁

😆 Just flicking through the pile of todays papers and I read this little jem from one of the lesser quality rags. 😳

Dogger Robbie Drance, 50, a regular visitor to Delamere forest in Cheshire with wife Judith, said the sell-off would be the death-knell for the couples hobby. He Fumed: “Our woodlands are a public resource and should remain so. If Private firms build holiday homes in the woods, there wont be any place for outdoor recriational sex.”

😆 So it looks like we can add Doggers to petition list 😆

Next time I’m on a night ride through Delamere, I must remember to shout “alright Robbie, evening Judith!” at every dogger we pass

I run a bunkhouse next to Brechfa Forest in Wales. Sorry to tell you folks that the Welsh Assembly is already ahead of the game on this one. They have published a strategy to build windfarms on all forestry commission land in Wales. They have already entered into contracts with developers and the planning applications will start to be made within the next few months.

At the last offical meeting with the developers and local community, the developers said they are planning to close the MTB trails in Brechfa forest for 2 years and build a windfarm on that land. Rumour has it that as the trails were built with EU grants they can’t be damanged, so the developers are planning to move the locations of the turbines.

However, where trails were built by volunteers they will not be protected. I hear that Afan will be badly effected.

Jillie.
http://www.brechfa-bunkhouse.com

Thanks for the clarification druidh. I would still be very worried about any sell off in england and wales though as pressure for scotland to follow would be high. As for charging some moderate charge for car parking might be ok but any charge for a purpose built facility seems like the thin end of a very thick wedge to me in the absence of any definition of “purpose built” Is Glentress purpose built? Is the WHW purpose built? Are the ski areas purpose built? I dont think it is possible to have a workable legal defintion of “purpose built” that would prevent charging for access to the countryside in general and so I am dead against charging for use of publicly owned facilities, private landowners are already able to charge for use of their land etc

Personally I don’t have any view on this until more detail is available. However having said that I didn’t vote for Call me Dave, I wouldn’t trust him or his cronies under any circumstances and I can’t think of any single thing that would be good for him and his ilk that I’m likely to be happy about.

We shall see.

Now, if there was any chance at all of them delivering on the promises of acting to get rid of the “compensation culture” then that might combine nicely with this- remove the threat of liability from landowners. But they won’t actually be doing any of that.

At the last offical meeting with the developers and local community, the developers said they are planning to close the MTB trails in Brechfa forest for 2 years and build a windfarm on that land. Rumour has it that as the trails were built with EU grants they can’t be damanged, so the developers are planning to move the locations of the turbines.

However, where trails were built by volunteers they will not be protected. I hear that Afan will be badly effected.

That doesn’t sound good 🙁

Re the more general point – it’s not necessarily bad in theory, but it almost certainly will be in practice.

Think how many DH tracks are on FC land, and what a private owner would do in their shoes.

TBH they’d be hard pushed to be bigger ****s than the FC

Mr Agreeable – Member
Think how many DH tracks are on FC land, and what a private owner would do in their shoes.

Build more and charge for use?

druidh – isn’t there already a fair bit of privately owned/managed bits of forest? Not many have bike tracks on them do they? Llandegla is the only one I can think of.

Laggan
Golspie
Drumlanrig

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/WolfTrax 😉

It’s not a very extensive list is it.

No – but it shows what could be possible.

BTW – Wolftrax is now part of Laggan Forest Trust – a partnership including FCS and the local community.

As I understand it Strathmashie (Laggan) is FC owned , and only managed in partnership with the LFT but still wholly dependant on the FC?

Perfect moment.

Privatise in return for Scottish access………….

Negative into a positive – true change.