cheeky monkey is first half of that vid above the road? We visited early last year, didn’t look like that, at the time some one said there was stuff up there but it wasn’t finished yet. Looks good.
Some of it is filmed up in the Norwood side (opposite side of road to car park). The original plan (c.10 years ago) was to build a figure eight loop either side of the road in both bits of wood. TBH there is scope for longer and stil great trails over on the Norwood side.
Sadly, and despite persistent lobbying to the point of upsetting some of FC, we/I could not persuade them to let us build formal trails on that side. There are many factors, that’s the way it is sometimes (not trying to be defeatist when WCA has such an inspiring story ;-).
So, the state of play on Norwood side is that riding is permitted but construction of trails is not. We can do some “maintenance” although this has to be very small scale e.g. raking and clearance, sorting the odd puddle. We cannot sign a route (thought there was, a year or two ago, yellow flagging tape to help people follow the map here: http://www.singletraction.co.uk/wp/?page_id=101, there’s also a bunch of additional info.
Some unsanctioned building has taken place up there. Some is OK, some just shonky but it’s an awkward situation to try and manage.
On a practical note, it’s a place well worth exploring as the weather improves as the trails dry out (apart fromt he swamp next to the road). I’ve had some of my best rides in theree in the dry months. It’s well worth an explore though can be a bit disjointed.
I hope one day to get permission from FC. There’s so many good reasons to as far as I can see and it would take the place up a grade / standard / capacity. But we have to have the land manager’s buy in and that has been and will (I expect) always be a struggle.
