EKOS and TRC have been commissioned by Scottish Enterprise to assess the mountain biking market in Scotland. As part of their work they are contacting mountain bikers to understand what trips they make to mountain bike locations in Scotland. They would be very grateful if you could complete the questionnaire available at the link below by Tuesday 24th February. Your responses will be confidential and will only be reported in an aggregate format.

http://www.ekosonlineresearch.co.uk/mtbclubs.htm

Done Have you posted this on other sites such as MTB scotland, stirling bike club etc?

Done

Done Have you posted this on other sites such as MTB scotland, stirling bike club etc?

Nope! feel free to pass it around I only had it sent to me today.

So now Scottish Enterprise are trying to get in on the act. So much for the ‘joined up’ Scottish Mountain Bike Development Consortium then, huh?

Done. Shame the deadline is today or we would get a whole load more people

Done 🙂

Done diddley done

The docs’s entitled a club member questionairre.

I too was very curious as to how SE saw fit not to publicise on STW (and a multiplicity of other places for that matter) I know the club scene will have a high concentration of serious / prepared to travel type riders but suurely that’s only a very small segment of the market?

Done.

Done, thouh what good it may do I have no idea.

I have some suspicions about way this seems to have only just appeared. There is something worrying about the way mountain biking in scotland is being manipulated by some organisations. And how all the supposed consultations are so poorly advertised.

Done.
“Anything you’d like to see in Mountain Biking in Scotland”

Ehhh… if we’ve been voted the best plance in the WORLD for MTB for a couple of years running now (Yes – beating even Canada) I’d recon we have just about everything we need !

As has been said already – For what it’s worth !

I have some suspicions about way this seems to have only just appeared. There is something worrying about the way mountain biking in scotland is being manipulated by some organisations. And how all the supposed consultations are so poorly advertised.

Good point – why do we need so many consultations? I’ve filled out at least 4 over the last few years…and I suspect another one will be getting churned out shortly as the answers they get from us bikers aren’t the answers they are wanting to hear…

Done.

Done

[Good point – why do we need so many consultations? I’ve filled out at least 4 over the last few years…and I suspect another one will be getting churned out shortly as the answers they get from us bikers aren’t the answers they are wanting to hear… [/i]

And lets not forget, TRC were involved in one of the previous ones…..nicely swept under the carpet a couple of years ago.

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I did it as well. Made comments about how we could easily have a Whistler with a little application!
As a complete aside did anyone do the petition at Save our forests?

SNP are trying to sell off our forests for short term gain under advice from those very clever bankers in London.

devs – Member

SNP are trying to sell off our forests for short term gain under advice from those very clever bankers in London.

No – they aren’t.

Be good if the West Coast / central Region got a half decent trail centre .. Carron valley aint exactly the best .. not taking away the volunteers how put alot of good work in.

I would be interested to hear your take on it then Druidh? So would a lot of people up here that have signed the petition. Have you got insider info or a viewpoint from the other “side”?

Well, for a start, it’s leasing out use of the forestry land, not selling it.

Though I believe those Westminster chaps ARE talking about selling the Englandandwales stuff.

What we have here are

a bunch of civil servants who have turned procrastination into an art form.

If you look at the history of all the TRC reports, last minute consultations, Perth etc etc the whole process has taken years, has cost the taxpayer a small fortune but strangely has produced zilcho tangible outputs.

IIRC Scotland was voted a ‘global superstar’ by IMBA – not sure that’s the same as being consistently voted the best mtb location in the world? For example, and as the poster above pointed out, we dont even have a comprehensive training / trail centre facility for Central Scotland. A glance at the updated Carron Valley website gives a very interesting insight into why that one never fulfiled its potential.

Edward H hints at some of the real issues: FC and Co know damn well they have to tick the public consultation box but they neatly manage to render these contributions worthless by the manner in which they go about it. In short the public don’t actually figure in the equation at all and neither do the politicians to a large extent.

As for leasing the land – how many examples are there of the public (i.e communities) actually having a real say on what happens upon that land? Despite the gloss, the FC run the forest estate as their own personal feifdom – reviewing that monopoly would be breath of fresh air imo.

A glance at the updated Carron Valley website gives a very interesting insight into why that one never fulfiled its potential

Jeebus! Just had a look at that. Makes from grim reading. There is always two sides to a story, but even with that in mind it’s clear to see that the actions of FCS were disgraceful.

Well worth reading: http://www.carronvalley.org.uk/timeline/index.html

On the Carron Valley story. I’d say there probably are two sides but the CVDG one was kept pretty quiet until fairly late on in the process. I think they’d pretty much exhausted all other options myself.

It’s a huge shame as CV has the potential to be a great easily accessible area.

Yeah it’s a real shame and a real eye opener with regards to how much red tape & bureaucracy the various bodies are bogged down with.

Druidh. Leasing or selling it makes no odds. Our publicly owned forests will be raped by those who care only for their own pockets and not the environment or land use.
There may be a hidden benefit where we can go and get cheeky as we like building trails without fear of Mr FC coming and getting rid of it but the FC do also do good stuff.
I’m not happy having our forests, don’t forget that they are public property, being used for short term topping up of political coffers.

I’m not happy having our forests, don’t forget that they are public property, being used for short term topping up of political coffers.

Neither am I – but unfortunately, that is what is already happening in a large number of cases…most folk are ignorant of it, but it is there to be seen if you have a look…most of it isn’t to top up political coffers either…

Leasing and selling are not the same – take your blinkers off

Leased or sold is irrelevant. What do we, the public, get out of the deal? You lease a car to someone, they pay you over a while and you get back a shagged car. You sell it to them, they give you the money up front but the car still gets shagged. Trouble is it stays on your driveway and you no longer have the power to repair, wash or polish it.
Does no one else object to this? I can’t see any benefit to joe public and the mtb populace but potentially lots of drawbacks.

Leased or sold irrelevant? I couldn’t disagree with you more.

I can’t be arsed spelling out what “we get” out of the deal (read the consultation doc – it’s in there) but it will certainly not be going to fund the SNP as your earlier statement asserts. The FC cannot exist in some kind of financial bubble.

We have a responsible right of access across the land at present (a rather moot point in some cases given the species / densities of many of the forests in question) and many millions of trees are going to be planted and harvested and re planted on that land regardless of who is managing timber operations. Some of the current forests are a **** planning mess anyway so talk of others raping the land is a little perverse. It is not in any private operators interest to rape that resource as you put it – that isn’t how sylviculture works iirc. IMO and given the necessary controlling restraints, the private sector are capable of responsibly running and managing timber harvesting in the proposed areas and it should easily be possible to balance that with access and recreation. This may even present better opportunities – is Llandegla for example, not a success? If these operators can also do so in a manner which derives far greater net £ to the public purse then isn’t that a good thing?

The land is not being sold – end of. You appear to be getting hung up on some kind of utopian public ownership idyll. The Forestry Commission buy and sell land all the time – euphemistically referred to as “repositioning the forest estate” I believe. How do you think they funded the £5m visitor centre at GT for example? Did they ask the public who might recreate in the forest that was sold if they’d mind that public asset being sold off or did they ask the public at large if we’d mind pumping £millions into the purchase of prime real estate to make that happen? There’s sh1tloads of stuff like this happening unseen. Two sides, same coin….

So no, I don’t see why the current set up should be considered inviolable and to compare what’s being proposed to a contract hire arrangement on a depreciating asset is frankly stupid.