> life on hold for 5 yrs – it’s not the new forth road bridge. It’s a project with about the same complexity as building a shithouse in the woods.<

What you waiting for then?

How long has the Innerleithen chairlift project been running? At a guess its at least 3 years. Anything coming out the ground yet?

Thought not.

Building it is the easy bit so that aside you couldn’t be more wrong…

filler to reveal the 40th post.

My tuppenceworth. I’d have thought there are two key aspects to this. The first is, are the council interested, or can they be persuaded? I know that E and T spoke to them a while back and hit a brick wall. The second is, is the chairlift suitable for being adapted to carrying bikes? I know nothing about chairlifts, but the Alps seem to have managed no problem.

Funky dunc – do you know that for sure? they used to take bikes didn’t they?

is the chairlift suitable for being adapted to carrying bikes?

This was the issue when it was last used for DH. They had to stop the lift to load every bike, and it’s a slow lift anyhow….

It’s a project with about the same complexity as building a shithouse in the woods.

Well, I’d say its more complex than you would think, based on my experience. If it happens I’ll buy you a pint 😉

Heather Bash – Member

> life on hold for 5 yrs – it’s not the new forth road bridge. It’s a project with about the same complexity as building a shithouse in the woods.<

What you waiting for then?

How long has the Innerleithen chairlift project been running? At a guess its at least 3 years. Anything coming out the ground yet?

The thing is the innerleithan chairlift is not plausible/ viable – we know that

This might or might not be – and its a much much smaller scale idea. tens of thousands not tens of millions

tens of thousands not tens of millions

Dunno, think it might be more than tens.

As a rough base – what did spooky wood cost to build? Say you need 5-10 trails of that kinda level of quality to make it work etc. (if you’re going to get the number of riders to make it work well, you need trails that can take it).

Phew, thought there was going to be two competing projects there for a minute but it’s ok – the Innerleithen guys now want a choo choo:

“Concerned with the slow progress of the much talked about chairlift at Innerleithen the local community have taken things into their own hands.

The original idea for a chairlift was first talked about in 2006 and following input from Emma and Tracey at The Hub and Gravity logic from Whistler, a feasibility study by the local enterprise agency and others was kicked off. The feasibility study identified a need and proposed a chairlift and associated infrastructure including new trail development at a cost of just over £10m. That was back in 2008 and not a lot has happened until now.

August 2010 saw a group from the local community pick up the mantel to see if they could move things forward or at least throw the weight of the community behind the project. A year later and things are moving. The group, AIMUp (Action for the Innerleithen Mechanical Uplift) brought the original partners back together to determine why things had stalled. Funding and costs were high on the agenda. In hard economic times there was very little prospect of finding the funds to take the plan to the next stage or to find a willing private partner to bring the £10m+ proposal to fruition.

With a strong group from the local community made up of local businesses, architects, engineers, and Lawyers including many mountain bikers, the group set about developing a real and cost effective proposal to take Mountain Biking at Innerleithen forward. The result is a community proposal costing close to half the original plan with a greater level of infrastructure. It is a plan which works alongside the Glentress Peel development and utilizes the proposed development of the Tweed Valley Railway line cycle paths. It proposes a proven uplift system with a lower environmental impact, re-construction of some existing trails alongside the development of new trails.

Is this just all talk and unlikely to happen? Well the group thinks the plan is a realistic one, they are looking at it from a business perspective. “Any development must be able to pay for itself, the business plan has to be robust and real”. “The number of mountain bikers combined with the existing facilities, services and trails at Innerleithen don’t justify the capital expenditure for a project of this size. It would be great to think it does and most people see the potential, but in today’s economic climate, the proposal has to incorporate facilities for many users groups and not just mountain bikers”.

The group has taken on the lessons learnt from other resorts and chairlift operators in the UK, Europe and Canada. They propose a rail mounted transport system that provides a proven low impact and cost effective system, which can transport up to 1200 people per hour(maximum capacity) to the top of Plora Rig. It is widely used by ski resorts throughout Europe and can be easily adapted for mountain bikers, in fact the group are actively working with the company to ensure the system works for mountain bikers alongside other users. In addition to the transport infrastructure the group propose base and top station facilities, a new cyclist/walkers bridge to allow for increased capacity, An all weather toboggan run, 4X tracks, new parking facilities and the all important development of the trail infrastructure. The proposal is aimed at working alongside Glentress to ensure that The Tweed Valley offers trails and facilities for all levels and disciplines of mountain biking for many years to come.

Is this the future for Innerleithen? I was told they can come with clip on roofs to protect you from our lovely weather

The group have had very positive meetings with the local council, councilors, MP’s and MSP’s. They have recently completed a successful round of public consultations and are working to take the project to a national level within the next 2 months . They have identified funding opportunities and are actively working towards a constitution that enables them to capture the funding required.

However, they are not getting carried away, ‘we have been here before, with lots of good ideas but no money to make it happen. The business model needs to be a realistic one, with the next stage to take the initial proposal and make it workable and affordable for the community, the end users and for the area around us”.

If you would like further details of the group and their plans, the group can be contacted at our Facebook Page or email:innerleithenaimup@gmail.com or phone Steve Davies on 01896 830208

Innerleithen development sounds great – could phase 1 be the installation of a toilet?

10’s of thousands?

Seriously – you need to get real.

Sorry, but this is just lala land stuff and that’s before you even start on the politics / dynamic of a competing project down the road.

Dunno, think it might be more than tens.

As a rough base – what did spooky wood cost to build? Say you need 5-10 trails of that kinda level of quality to make it work etc. (if you’re going to get the number of riders to make it work well, you need trails that can take it).

Yeah I would expect several hundred thousand. Apart from the planning and development costs, which would be 6 figures, I would say without doubt it would be essential to use the services of recognised trail designers and builders to build the trails, the cost of which is pretty staggering. I think it would be massively cheaper than the Inners project, assuming bikes can get the existing lift in one way or another.

A couple of miles of trail – Hundreds of thousands?

The key factors of course would be can the bikes go on the lifts and is anyone offical interested.

TJ

The thing is the innerleithan chairlift is not plausible/ viable – in my opinion

tens of thousands who knows how much? not tens of millions

FTFY

(incidentally, not commenting on overall feasability here, I just enjoy the discussion. I think feasability’s too complex a subject since it depends so much on the fickleness of public funding- Hillend itself isn’t really feasible even though it exists 😉 This is the part people forget)

You could do it badly for tens of thousands, I reckon, then it’d fail. See: Glenshee, the Lecht. Throw minimal funds at it, get minimal interest. You might see it as a starting point but more realistically, what you get is a loss of momentum, and a counterargument- whenever you say “Lets add more trails” people will say “Nobody rides the ones we have”, and if you do manage to build a second trail everyone says “But the old one was rubbish”. Dead on arrival.

If you want any level of sustainability it’d need to be done right from the get-go.

£250000 is a good number- that’s one Laggan. Not a bad benchmark for a starting investment, IMO- depending on ground conditions and layout that’d probably put in a decent quality red, blue, dh and jump line, assuming all 4 are fairly direct.

Yeah I reckon Jeremy. I’m not sure of the planning requirements for such a development, I think it would be a Schedule 2 development or an extension of the existing Schedule 2, and thus require EIA if over 1ha in area (100m x 100m), in which case you are straight into spending a lot of money on that alone. As I said I’m convinced everything would ahve to be designed, planned and constructed properly by recognised professionals, seeing as this isn’t going to be just some enthusiasts hacking through remote woods like at Inners, which even for a couple of trails would be a lot too.

Thats a good point Northwind – but there is not enough room surely for the amount of trails that Laggan started with

life on hold for 5 yrs – it’s not the new forth road bridge. It’s a project with about the same complexity as building a shithouse in the woods
Based on your in depth knowledge of a something in this spehere I presume? Or just usual STW bolloxology? 😉

You’d be surprised how much time (and your own money) you can spend on a “minor” project as a volunteer. The one that broke me was (hopefully) a one off though...

edit – wrong end of the stick

Like Northwind, I’m finding this interesting but don’t have much to comment. If Hillend needed volunteer trailbuilders I’d happily lend a hand/shovel/mattock, as would several others, it seems. Until then, though, I’d like to encourage everyone to give consideration to other local volunteer trailbuilding groups – the Glentress Trailfairies, TJ’s collaboration with the Pentlands Rangers (I hope that it continues this year), the Vat Pack in South Queensferry and probably some others too.

Like Chris just said, make a big effort with the current trails, they need it and build up a reserve of brownie points that show we are willing to work at something and not just for the benifit of ourselves. That will hopefully go long way when trying to persuade people of your good intentions and seriousness. If you try now to say “we want trails at Hillend” then some will just turn round and say “look at what you’ve done to the other trails in the Pentlands” and that’ll be the end of the story. If we can show that ywe are trying to encourage responsible use of the existing trails and are doing as much as anybody to help maintain them then we give ourselves a better chance of getting new projects off the ground.

life on hold for 5 yrs – it’s not the new forth road bridge. It’s a project with about the same complexity as building a shithouse in the woods
Based on your in depth knowledge of a something in this spehere I presume? Or just usual STW bolloxology?

Usual STW bolloxology I guess, but written in response to wee ray of sunshine’s comment on 5 years out of your life, which is clearly bolloxomics in the other direction. The reality no doubt lies in between.

I can quite believe a volunteer trail-building project could mushrooom into a major commitment. Any Hillend project wouldn’t really be in that vein, though – the prominence of the site and the existing ski centre means it would really need funding properly to get the green light.

>which is clearly bolloxomics in the other direction<

Says you. And you have been involved in how many similar trailbuilding projects exactly?

Ask any of the professional trailbuilders who have been associated with community led projects.

IME 5 years is very much the norm and that’s one of the major reasons so many ‘build it and they will come’ ideas never make it beyond the internet.

I would expect it would take a year or two to do something like this. Consultation periods take up a lot of time, and then there might need to be periods of time in which people can make representations etc. Edinburgh core paths plan ran over a few years anyway, and that was just identifying a network of existing paths!

A year or two after what though?

I think you are making the over optimistic assumption that all this chattering will condense into a small nucleus of competent and highly determined people…. individuals capable of leading and championing the project. AND that they in turn will be successful achieving swift buy in from the relevant authorities.

We’ve already heard one anecdotal tale of Emma and Tracey being repulsed and they have more of a track record than 99% of those posting on this thread.

As the saying goes, if it was so easy then everyone would be doing it.

Not being negative just realistic.