Could you turn it into a trail center.

I am guessing that you could for friends and family easily enough, but if you wanted it opened up to the public it would be full planning permission etc.

A friend is looking for a business opportunity, and this would seem to be a good lifestyle route, but not very good at making money ( you would however own the land)

There are lots of grants available to those making recreational use out of forests.

Take Llandegla for instance. Private enterprises receive more funding that the FC do from government to promote recreation in forests.

You’ll also need a big woodland if you’re looking to a “Trail Centre” rather than a few trails in the woods.

look at any covenants on the land and any planning issues that may apply re: parking, traffic, crossing other peoples land, non-plantation commercial use etc.

I looked at stiff on here: http://www.woodlands.co.uk/ idly and a lot of it had words to the effect: ‘can only be enjoyed by the owner and must not disturb owners of adjacent land’ restrictions on it. I can understand some people might find mtb trails would be covered by that?

Thanks. Trail center was probably a bit of a grand term for the amount of woodland available, it would be more like a quick blast center 🙂 But that is what you need sometimes. The land is near a highly populated area so could get the family market etc.

Thanks for the info on grants I will pass it on.

this place has been going for years and grown pretty popular;

http://www.wildernesswood.co.uk/

although they’ve cut right back as the original owners want to retire and their children don’t want to carry it on.

lots of ideas on things to offer though.

That place looks ace WWas.

I don’t think you’d ever make money from it (trail centre), certainly not enough to get a return on your investment.

Bear in mind that its hard enough to get a return out of woodland when you’ve got people willing to pay £1000 a day to shoot pheasants.

I don’t think you’d ever make money from it, certainly not enough to get a return on your investment.

He would have enough money to buy the land outright. He just wants not to be working for anybody but himself.I doubt if it would ever bring in enough money even for a modest income, It would definitely be a lifestyle choice rather than an investment.

Whenever I’ve idly looked at woodland for sale there are only small areas, normally in a larger area of woodland the rest of which isn’t for sale! No idea how much it would cost you to buy woodland of a size big enough for some decent trails, or if there is even the opportunity to purchase anything that big. One saving grace might be that very steep areas could be less desirable to non-mountain bikers hence cheaper!

some of the small centers are leased from the owner rather than owned outright. The owner probably retains rights to the wood harvesting, shooting, holding other events etc, the ‘tennant’ gets to build the trails, run the car park etc.

woodlands are arround £6k per hectare so £600,000 km2, so even a small hillside is in the order of several million, or more than enough to retire on and just ride bikes everyday!

I’ve thought about it before now. The main problem with mountain bike use is that you really need a fair amount of space to get decent trails in – hence you’d need a lot of money to bet a big enough wood.
I was looking at it from a trials bike point of view. Trials bikes need a fraction of the space as it’s all about the route/countours/obstacles and not the downhill distance – so a 2 or 3 acre wood would keep a number of trials bikes happy for ages.
The other thing to think about is how much you could realistically charge. Seeing as there are actually a lot of areas open to mountain bikes for free (or very little money) you’d really only be able to charge a couple of quid a day – not worth it by a long shot.
Trails bikes on the other hand are limited in where they can go and consequently they will pay quite a lot more for a decent place to play.
The downside is that they are more noisy and as such you’re getting into planning issues.

One saving grace might be that very steep areas could be less desirable to non-mountain bikers hence cheaper!

I’m afraid shooting is better in areas with big slopes.

Unless things have changed since I looked into this several years ago the insurance costs are damn expensive

Wasn’t there a news article recently of some posh bloke landscaping his own woodland so it would be better for shooting, but then getting in trouble for not having permission.

I seem to remember something but can’t find anything on BBC.

All you need is a particular type of newt or something and you won’t be able to touch it. It doesn’t matter if it’s for your own personal use or for public use.

saw a for sale sign in some woodlands on my ride yesterday, thought now that would be nice, checked on internet when I got home…. £572k for 105 acres hmm maybe not

All you need is a particular type of newt or something and you won’t be able to touch it.

The presence of protected species isn’t a stopper. In the case of newts it would meean bridging the pond with a boardwalk rather than hardcore. There are very few species that would completely stop a scheme. Their presence just means doing a bit more homework and using a bit more imagination. If you did have something worth protecting most wildlife trusts would be happy to work with you.

For a business the main issue would be parking. Trails have little if no ecological or visual impact in a wood.