TBH I think there’s a better case for spreading the money out- Laggan did more for its area per penny spent than GT does I think. Big honeypots are fine but throwing money to the biggest centres seems a bit off.

we’re in 100% agreement there mate! 😀

Even a decent bog there would cost buttons.

Ha! from an organisation spending 9m on a visitor centre? The toilets at Carron Valley cost upwards of £30k….

You think the peel centre is a waste of money but you want a chairlift?

As for new rails:

New Blue climb

Good Game blue descent? and some further bits below it
Two recent blues

I really think familiarity has led you to fail to see how much trailbuiding goes on and how good GT trails are.

A new cafe was well overdue IMO.

This is getting more and more out of control.

The money from the carpark goes back into the trails. Anyone who parks further away or doesn’t pay just to avoid parking charges is out of order and taking the p!$$ using trails they are not prepared to pay for – all IMO.

Threatening to boycott a new business because you liked the old one is also a joke. As pointed out, the new owners are local small business owners. As nice as E&T are and as sorry as I feel for them, trying to put another small business out of business is not the right way forward. They won the tender process, various people who know the people behind the hotel have also said they are nice people too.

Likewise the bike shop comments and swearing not to use it, most of the time I end up in that shop it will be because something has broke and not replacing it means a trip home with limited riding.

The service I’ve received in the Hub has always been first class but so has the service in Alpine. I suspect that we’ll see a lot of the Hub staff in the new Alpine as they’ll be experienced bike mechanics looking for work when a new place opens.

As Alpine is a bigger chain the chance to ride different demo bikes will increase. Sure they’ll have the standard fleet but some of the demo bikes they currently have are pretty awesome.

This nonsense about no development going into the trails is just plain daft too. Most sections on the red have been changed in some way in the last year – look at the difference in the red/black/blue climb in the past two years for example. Whether these have improved it or ticked health and saftey boxes is a different debate!

Most weekends cars are parked on the verges around GT which shows how many people currently use it. If the centre brings in more people FC will have to invest more in the trails.

The development also included the WigWam village, that must bring in extra cash and visitors for the FC.

Sorry about the rant, some of this is just winding me up more and more! Also, apologies to anyone who is of a different opinion, this wasn’t meant to be too aggressive!!!

You think the peel centre is a waste of money but you want a chairlift?

i lol’d 🙂

Well said steve.

My point about organising a boycott was not that I think its right – i certainly don’t – but that moaning on the internet will do nothing – if you feel that strongly then take action – direct action done properly could alter things. You will soon see how many folk actually feel that strongly tho – none I suggest.

The toilets at Carron Valley cost upwards of £30k….

😯

For a draughty hut with one crapper, two pissers and sink.

I’m in the wrong line of work…

A new cafe was well overdue IMO.

£9M worth of cafe?* Wouldn’t you like to see a new trail or two?

*I know it’s not just a cafe. It has a bike shop and “exhibition” centre too.

Officially, the last new trail at Glentress were Good Game and The Admiral.

Any ‘new’ trails since then have been replacements/safety improvements/maintenance, all due to the fact there is currently a FCS wide ban on new trail construction. As far as the reasoning behind the ban, it’s largely down to the number of trails constructed all over scotland with no thoughts towards maintenance.
Even though the 7stanes do have a maintenance plan in place, they are still subject to the ban.

I take it that E&T will still be guiding and coaching at Glentress even after the lease of the Hub runs out. Running a boycott of the new cafe and Peel could have a knock on effect on that business. If the new cafe owners don’t like the boycott they could exclude E&T from the cafe and the FCS could stop them hiring the training nnd business meeting space for running courses.

The development also included the WigWam village, that must bring in extra cash and visitors for the FC.

The WigWam’s are privately owned.

stevemtb, I don’t think the Wigwams are part of the redevelopment, I could be wrong but I think it’s not FC land.

dazzlingboy – Member

“I just think the dosh could’ve been much better spent, but if you ask 10 people you’ll get 10 difference suggestions on how to distribute it.”

But every single one will agree it could have been better spent I reckon.

But I think the results would have been the same- to go dangerously back on topic for a second a new, larger, fit for purpose cafe was inevitable sooner or later and that’d mean new operators whether it was in a £9m visitor’s centre or a bargain basement prefab. I know not everyone agrees but I think the cafe was pretty much the crappest part of Glentress (after the toilets)

We’re agreeing more than disagreeing here.

you want a chairlift

I don’t want a chairlift – it was a (poor) example of where money could be otherwise spent.

A new cafe was well overdue IMO.

agreed. Just not a £9m one!

doesn’t pay just to avoid parking charges is out of order

agreed.

Most sections on the red have been changed in some way in the last year

again – agreed! But I think this level of expenditure was a once in a blue moon chance to seriously upgrade trails and build new trails both at GT and Innerleithen. This level of money won’t be spent on a Scottish Trail Centre for a long long time if ever.

>if you read the link you will also see it has been partly funded by Scottish Enterprise and Sports Scotland.<

Your point being? FC, SE and SS were all directly funded by the taxpayer last time I checked & none of them are directly accountable to the electorate so they’ve got that in common at least. Scottish Enterprises Senior Management team were also a bloody disgrace but that’s another story…

It’s been discussed ad nauseum on here before but many years ago the FC ran a so called consultation exercise in order to inform a mtb strategy. AFAIK no strategy document was ever produced, there was no further consultation and the exercise morphed into the SMB framework or whatever it’s now called. The lack of process or proper consultation upset many folk – across the board.

How did FCS take us from that to where we are now? Simple, they just carried on doing what they were going to do anyway. That’s what winds me up re this whole saga.

Most sections on the red have been changed in some way in the last year
again – agreed! But I think this level of expenditure was a once in a blue moon chance to seriously upgrade trails and build new trails both at GT and Innerleithen. This level of money won’t be spent on a Scottish Trail Centre for a long long time if ever.

A lot of local authorities would argue that the money would be better spent in their area giving them a trail centre rather than adding more trails to an existing popular centre.
Another argument is why spend money on remote locations that a large proportion of the people who would benefit most from mountainbiking cannot get to, why not spend the money on urban mountainbike trails, like the proposal for Craigmillar Castle Park and the Vat run at South Queensferry. An equally valid argument could be put up for Glasgow, Central belt, Stirling, Aberdeen, Dundee etc.

Fair point Bikepawl. As mentioned above – spread the cash around a little bit although the danger is that spread too thin the benefits may become harder to see.

The problem with spending it all in one place is that everybody can see, but not everybody can access the resource. At least if you start to spread it around the local authorities can contribute as can local charities and interest groups.

Heather Bash – Member
>if you read the link you will also see it has been partly funded by Scottish Enterprise and Sports Scotland.<

Your point being?

That it wasn’t just the Forestry Commissions money being spent on the visitor centre. These quango’s were likely seeing the positive effect on the Peebles local economy and decided it was a good investment, and maybe a spur to stimulate further projects in other parts of the country.

Wouldn’t disagree with that – the ‘authorities’ seem to have accepted there is an absence of provision in certain key population areas. They just dont seem to have advanced beyond two or three years talking about it 😉

>That it wasn’t just the Forestry Commissions money being spent on the visitor centre<

With respect – I think that much was obvious.

And my point was that it is all public money / that there is only so much of it to ‘hand out’ to mtb – again rather obvious. All the more reason therefore, for a.) taking a holistic / strategic view across the forest estate and b.) Apropos my previous point – FCS saying what it means and meaning what it says.

In my view, FCS has been found wanting re b.)

Also, none of these parties work in splendid isolation – the funding scene is populated by a small number of key civil servants all swimming in the same bowl. FCS are THE controlling influence in terms of where and how mtb is distributed on public land as they obviously control the vast bulk of the publicly available land for development (or at least public land on any scale) They are also very adept at influencing other public bodies both positively and negatively and they disburse ‘their own’ funding to other public and private projects via WIAT (Woodlands in and around Towns)and the Woodlands Grants Sceme (Golpsie being one beneficiary of this.)

They also have a controlling interest in Central Scotland Forest Trust.

So when people talk about the very small group of landowners disproportionally controlling vast swathes of Scotland – FCS is right up there amongst them 😉

As I said, if you’re going to run public consultations they need to be open, honest and transparent. I don’t begrudge GT a new building or buildings and the status quo was clearly not an option. But,if FCS really are as powerful as the above seems to suggest then I believe their actions & expenditure should be subjected to more public scrutiny.

Well that’s quangos for you, talking shops earning some large dollars 😉
Sorry, I didn’t think that some posting about more money being spent on trails realised there were other funding bodies, and that the development is all about MTBers.
Can’t agree more with you on the rest.

Wonder how many jobs £9 million or whatever it is would have saved?

The Forestry Commission has announced plans to cut around 500 jobs in England and Scotland.

Some 350 staff are set to go in England and 150 at the commission’s headquarters in Edinburgh.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12343835

Bet a fiver that it won’t be those at the top that lose them either… 🙄

I’m not saying that the development is all about MTBers, I was suggesting that the most revenue would come from MTBers, hence the bike shop rather than, say an outdoors shop.
More trails = more MTBers = more revenue. Shirley.

I’ve had this discussion before but your are describing the principle, not the actual, tendering process.
I know first hand you can engineer a public procurement process to get whatever outcome you want. I imagine it can even be done in a way that would be legally defensible.

I am describing the actual tendering process I have been part of – weeks ago rather than longer. Utterly above board and transparent.

I love the ‘£9m – that could have bought a lot of trails’ crowd. The FC are trying to diversify and broaden the appeal of their lot – not appease a load of cyclists. Also, any successful bidder will probably be paying a %-age of profits – as hinted in the quotes from the FC head honcho – that ensures future investment is generated. Spunking money now with no plan to generate more is bad spending – building in revenue for years to come is sustainable and sensible. Think long term, not the life of your current tyres.

Yeah because a new cafe is going to attract an 200,000 visitors a year 🙄

TooTall – Member

“I love the ‘£9m – that could have bought a lot of trails’ crowd. The FC are trying to diversify and broaden the appeal of their lot – not appease a load of cyclists.”

Doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive- trails could include more walkers/horcylists trails after all, and a quality visitor’s centre could probably have been delivered for less. Anyone know how much the CYB visitor’s centre cost?

>I am describing the actual tendering process I have been part of – weeks ago rather than longer. Utterly above board and transparent.<

Where do we find this – is it on the FCS website?

i really want to see what 9m gets you on a cafe .Tbh the shower/toilets are a bit of a joke you really might catch something in there.

I am describing the actual tendering process I have been part of – weeks ago rather than longer. Utterly above board and transparent.

.. which, unless it was the the Hub procurement we’re talking about, is fairly irrelevant.

My point was that procurement can be as straight as a die, and it can be as bent as a 9 bob note. I am not saying whether the Hub one is either, but then I am also not saying that just because it was procured through this process it must be beyond question and incontrovertible (which is what I believe you said in an earlier post).

Anyone who has put in a tender can challenge
the public authority’s decision on awarding
the contract, within the 10-day ‘standstill’
period, in the High Court (in Scotland the
Court of Session) if they think they have not
kept to the EU procurement directives
(because the directives have been included in
UK law as a number of regulations).

You saying ‘crooked’ proves nothing – other than your personal view. The above quote should help you next time you don’t win a contract and have the hump.

1. All well and good, tootall, but when you introduce subjective analysis as well as pure and simple price, that is how you ‘manouvre’ the procurement process in your desired direction.

2. As for giving other areas the benefit of investment and trails – google CVDG – various local authorities in the central region were very keen to throw money at expansion of Carron Valley and FC scuppered it. FCS’ behaviour in this instance was a disgrace.

P.S. I rarely go to GT and felt that in the last few years prices in the cafe went up and portions went down! But that’s just my opinion.

Regardless of who should run the cafe – this smacks of what FCS did to CVDG – clash of personalities and a bit of ‘we’ll show you who’ boss’ mentality.

ooh ooh ooh…I have some gossip on the Peel centre, can’t tell though as it might get some folk into trouble.

I hate having to keep secrets!

Regardless of who should run the cafe – this smacks of what FCS did to CVDG – clash of personalities and a bit of ‘we’ll show you who’ boss’ mentality.

Is there any evidence of that? I didn’t get the impression that the concerns from the HUB people were about possible distortion of the tendering process?

In any situation like this, there are bound to be strong personalities involved, but letting them dominate the way you interact with any business negotiation is a very effective way of scuppering your efforts. Even if you get on well with the people you’re dealing with at the time, you have to sort out terms on the basis that you need a level of protection if the players involved change. That’s never more true than when you’re dealing with public bodies – a change of ruling party or shift in policy emphasis can catch you out very quickly if you don’t have contingency plans.

ooh oooh oohhh.. 🙄

Of course, there are two sides to every story, but it’s just my opinion – having seen evidence how persons in the employ of FCS behaved in their dealings with CVDG (and hearing about the potential financial restrictions that are going to be placed on event organisers in future) – bottom line seems all about the dough.

I’ve always liked the hub cafe, never thought much of the shop, hope the new one is as good, cannot understand the need to spend the money on a centre which was already successful seems like a big waste, they would have been better investing in another forest to give some other area a lift, fed up reading about E&T losing “the hub” some hack in the Scotsman even had the audacity to suggest “the hub” is a co-operative, bet thats news to the employees!, whoever suggests their life is dissolving before their eyes wants to get a life, they’ve had a great kick at the ball over the past 10 years and made a bundle, sure there next venture wont’ be a guaranteed cash cow but then lots of people are finding themselves in that position now.

ditch_jockey – Member

“I didn’t get the impression that the concerns from the HUB people were about possible distortion of the tendering process?”

Quite the opposite as far as I can tell, it’s the fairness of it that’s upset people.

Evening!

Does anyone know how much of the funding comes from donations and local / national support and how much of the trail building and maintenance is done by the trail fairies and other volunteers?

The FCS is taking a lot of credit for Glentress, I would be very surprised if they are responsible for it’s success.

I love the ‘£9m – that could have bought a lot of trails’ crowd. The FC are trying to diversify and broaden the appeal of their lot – not appease a load of cyclists.

emmm, they cant market GT as their flagship centre for MTB in Scotland source and not expect people to grumble about 9 million spunked on a visitor centre.

kaesae – Member
“Does anyone know how much of the funding comes from donations and local / national support and how much of the trail building and maintenance is done by the trail fairies and other volunteers?

The FCS is taking a lot of credit for Glentress, I would be very surprised if they are responsible for it’s success.”

TBH you’re having a laugh if you don’t think the FCS is responsible for GT’s success, everyone contributes and it wouldn’t be as good as it is without all of that but without the FC it just wouldn’t exist as we know it so most credit can only go to them.

The Fairies do a fair bit… Some repairs, some really nice builds and rebuilds. TBH I reckon most of the best stuff in the forest has Fairy sweat in it. But, though there’d be no Fairies without us lot there’d also be no Fairies without the FCS and the work of the Rangers so you can’t really seperate the two- they provide the tools, the direction, the raw materials and most importantly the adult supervision… We supply the cakes and the sarcasm (some of the others supply muscle, I don’t have any of that). I’m never sure whether the bike rangers do it as part of their working week or they’re volunteering too but either way it’s great to work with them. I’m fairly new to it so all Pie Run, Mushroom Pie, black secrets etc are before my time.

There’s also “The Students” though I don’t know so much about them, I think they did a lot of the clearing in the Wormhole too.

>All well and good, tootall, but when you introduce subjective analysis as well as pure and simple price, that is how you ‘manouvre’ the procurement process in your desired direction.<

Judge for yourselves – scoring matrix template’s in here:

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/GlentressPeelLOT2ITT.pdf/$FILE/GlentressPeelLOT2ITT.pdf

Didn’t trawl through the whole document or any others for that matter but I would expect the “The (insert public body) is not bound to accept the lowest or any tender” clause to be in there somewhere. Lowest in this context being highest.

All rather an academic discussion anyway as FCS has no obligation to demonstrate transparency by filling in the blanks for us 😉

from the posts on here you can see why the current cafe operators struggled to get past the first stage assessment

the good news is that another local business won the the rather than a large chain