Just been sent a mail from a mate, apparently some damage has been done to the FC diggers and all access for MTB has been revoked.

Do not ride there until this has been sorted out, is the message…

Can’t quite believe why anyone would vandalize the diggers, they are only there for a short time then things gradually get back to normal, idiots.

Haldon cafe side you mean?

You won’t believe the stuff people will try to nick off machines in the woods. We’re probably going to need security for a site near Newport for a contractor to agree.

Unless of course there are other ill feelings and it’s malicious.

Ye Haldon Cafside

We’ve had kit parked across fields with no public access and they still get vandalised. Worst was having one of our long reach 9 ton diggers burnt right out in Stamford.

Does that mean the Forestry people think mountain bikers are responsible for the damage?

What was being dug out over there? Haven’t been there for a while but it would be a shame if something like this ruins it for others!

the upper part is being thinned atm
By the sound of the text i got, it seems they suspect mtbers?

No, just they have had to hire security to keep the contractor on site and it is easier to have no access I guess. Equally, live sites would necessitate closing access.

Heard some fantastic stories off the harvesting contractors in the Valleys. Some very specific machinery being stripped, probably for scrap as everyone who owns the kit knows each other anyway. Hydraulic pumps are popular for scrap weight.

a mate messaged me about vandalism to kit, with suspected rider involvement earlier, but i have no idea what this was based on, or what damage was inflicted.
they have a job to do, let them get on with it and FO ASAP. we’ll clear up later.

Saw this on Facebook:

Hey all just stumbled across this post in cafe side group, thought i would pass the info on, not cool 🙁
EVERYONE STAY OUT OF CAFE

The shit has hit the fan. someone has done £30,000 damage to the harvester. FC are understandably pissed and as its their only machine,cafeside is going to remain fully closed to all activities untill possibly easter or beyond. police have taken forensic evidence and there may be cctv footage too. They will prosecute if they find the culprit. I just hope it was no one that rides. Haven’t heard from Toby or Gem about it yet, I just popped in to see Jon about the fallen trees that were cut to clear slush puppy, which they were pissed about, which is fair because it was technically damaging their product which generates their income. The fc reffered to it as criminal damage.The loggers have barred off all the trails and tracks deliberately to make it impossible to ride in the areas they are operating in. The rows they cut at first were not the actual work, but the lanes to drive the machine through so it can harvest left and right of each fire break. They started really stripping the timber out earlier this week and the whole fire road is lined with timber.
But that’s how it going to have to stay now until the harvester is repaired.

ALL ACCESS AND DIGGING PERMISSION FOR THE BOTTOM TRAILS HAS BEEN REVOKED INDEFINITELY.

No one is allowed in there to do anything but walk AND ONLY outside of the restricted areas.PLEASE ADVISE EVERYONE TO STAY AWAY. As soon as I have met to discus this matter with the FC, I will let you all know where we stand.
By not staying away, you may provoke the FC’s right of removal of everything in there and you might risk prosecution. Please stay out

This sucks, but if I were fc I would do the same. I know a lot of the team up there and many of them ride.

Is there still access to the top of St Andrew’s lane?

Is there still access to the top of St Andrew’s lane?

I imagine there must be as it is a bridleway, although I haven’t been up for a while due to injury. Anyway, shitty news, hopefully nothing to do with riders.

yeah, you just need to go past the cafe and ride down the side of the dual carriageway a bit, the turn is fairly obvious, though the BW sign that was there got taken out a couple of years ago, presumably by a car or something.
any wood that got cut was probably worth about £2.50 but damage to the machine is a shocker. vandalism isn’t going to mean parts that are easily replaced off the self either, incurring further delays i imagine, and time is money. 🙁

Sounds like a possible excuse to “indefinitely” kick riders off.

So is this advice from one emotive FB post, or direct from the FC? I find the latter hard to believe. If they want to bring the police in, fine. Shouldn’t be any reason to stop anyone riding. Are they blocking off the blue trail also?

Far more likely the pikeys down the road are a place to start investigating 😉 What on earth makes sense that mountain bikers would vandalise the stuff there?

Stuff blocked off because they’re working there, well that’s normal. Working forests. Ride on I say and if you see it blocked off, move on to where its not blocked off. Blanket “don’t go there!” seems an over reaction.

having chatted to colleagues at work about this today, one of them, who does a bit of wood work, pointed out that some types of wood are of course rather expensive. obvious, but i didn’t really think beyond the pine mono-culture.

it’s not my experience of those involved on the recreational fc side are anti-rider or looking for any excuse to shut things down. they’re good people, have off days like any of us.
also worth noting that those doing the harvesting aren’t part of the same group but are going where the work is.

I can’t imagine the wood in that area was of any value, it’s not an oak woodland, it’s pine…. Much more likely to be pokey related given they live just down the road. Probably the same ones that tried to rob a bike at knife point up there a few months back.

i wonder if they’d of closed everything down if it had been done near the (lucrative) car park at the main site…..

that’s unfair, and no more fair than the suggestion that it was riders, or my quip about bird watchers..
suggest you edit that while you have the chance.

It’s probably of more value than the poor quality hardwoods that are grown in the UK. Certainly easier to market and sell, and of significantly more value to the UK populus (think about it when your wiping your arse tomorrow) than a stack of firewood.

It’s the guys trying to earn a living that lose out directly when people start messing with the kit and hacking up the trees not the FC.

And the without the “lucrative” car park (the income generated that gets reinvested into the FC’s woodlands for people to enjoy) there wouldn’t be cafe side as you know it.

Unfair Del? Did you see the state they left their old site in when they got moved to the new public funded one?

yep. it’s irrelevant. my point is that blaming one group of people for something without any reasonable suspicion is just as bad as blaming another.

why the animosity towards the FC?

Haldon and Bellever are actually pretty productive little spots. On the vandalism front, please don’t blame the obvious scapegoats – there are some idiots in the cycling community that might do it, just as there’re some idiots out of the cycling community.

St Andrews lane is clearly marked by a tall pillar as it’s part of a LDW trail.

Some softwoods command equal or better prices than hardwood, stuff like Douglas Fir and Western Red Cedar and especially when in length. Pays better than the majority of hardwood that ends up in a very lucrative firewood market.

Del – Member

yep. it’s irrelevant. my point is that blaming one group of people for something without any reasonable suspicion is just as bad as blaming another. like the FC blaming bikers?

The FC aren’t blaming bikers, they are shutting down all public access to the area, which just happens to include bikers!

DeadKenny – There are some guys trying to engage with the FC and get the situation sorted and formalised moving forwards, posts like yours put the entire thing in jeopardy.

Full details for anyone interested here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/135265086818885

they are shutting down all public access to the area

Are the FC allowed to do that?

Anyway hope this gets resolve and the culprits get caught.

Full details for anyone interested here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/135265086818885

ta, but behind facebook sign-in, unfortunately.

Del – It’s a link to the text Jambo posted up earlier.

I did think we lost the boy and Tio the other day for a while, no smoke without fire and all that… 😉

they both looked like wrong ‘uns from the start, those two. 😉

Are the FC allowed to do that?

If they own the land and from the sound of it the area/woods aren’t full public rights of way either, so Yes.

only part of it is shown as access land on the devon CC GIS map. I imagine even if that wasn’t the case they could restrict access on the basis of H&S – not unreasonable given whirring blades and big wheels.

They can shut off the work site area on H&S grounds, it’s temporary and trumps any other concerns.
Safe working distance for a harvester is 200m due to risk of chain throw, that’s a chainsaw chain ejected with the equivalent velocity of a bullet from a rifle.
FC are pretty strict with work areas and prescribe zoning to contractors.

tomnavman – Member
DeadKenny – There are some guys trying to engage with the FC and get the situation sorted and formalised moving forwards, posts like yours put the entire thing in jeopardy.

I was just fishing to see if this is just an overreaction from a rider saying “stay away!” when in fact it may not be the case. If the FC are just blocking off the whole area to everyone then fair enough. As I said though, if it’s marked off then sure stay out. If not then general public aren’t going to know any difference.

Sounds to me it’s just blocked off for the forestry work, not the incident.

And telling riders to stay away because they’ve had the finger pointed at them seems wrong to me when I strongly suspect they had nothing to do with it.

My concern is that I’ve seen things like this before where a bit of fuss has been kicked up about an area with rumours of a ban & police involved and “the community” gets alarmist and shouting “stay away!” and yet when getting the real facts it turns out there’s no real issue at all.

I’ve been in touch with the Haldon Rangers to try to clarify things. They said that the trails were closed Cafside due to harvesting before the vandalism took place, not because of it.

As far as St Andrews lane is concerned they have said:

“We’re just in a meeting discussing all matters regards cafe side, amongst other things. Unfortunately, access to St Andrew’s Lane via our land and the harvesting site is not authorised during operations.

As you’ve already hinted at, there are other access options but I’ve been advised that we can’t condone use of these and that they would be used at your own risk.”

That was at 4pm today. I expect that the Rangers will be able to give the best information from tomorrow on.

Thanks for the clarification Kip, that is very useful.