Everyone’s favourite cake emporium and mountain bike centre, not to mention the literal hub of the Ard Rock Enduro, the Dales Mountain Bike Centre in Reeth, North Yorkshire, has just scored planning permission to extend its operations, with more places to stay and a lot more space for cake. Given that the initial centre took a lot of careful planning and justifying, what with being in a very twee part of the world and all, we’re delighted to hear that it has been granted this extension.
So we tracked down Big Stu for a word about it. Here’s what he excitedly had to say:
Dales Bike Centre, Fremington in Swaledale (home of the Ardrock Enduro and stacks of great mountain biking in the Yorkshire Dales National Park) has just been granted full planning permission by unanimous decision of the YDNP Planning committee for an ambitious expansion.
The near £1million pound project aims to extend and improve the café, add an additional eight en-suite guest rooms, extend bike hire storage and provision, re-site and extend car parking along with improving access to the centre from the road.
A proposed single storey cafe building designed to extend indoor seating capacity to 70 covers will incorporate a grass roof, glass front elevation and glass link to their current cafe building.
A second building primarily expands the accommodation offered by the centre with five double/twin en-suite rooms and 3 family rooms, all ensuites. Room layouts have been thoughtfully designed specifically with cyclists in mind.
A third building will house the guests’ secure bike store and sauna {AND SAUNA! – Ed} along with toilets and showers for day visitors exploring Swaledale by bike.
The plans also involve improving access and moving the parking away from the current buildings to allow a ‘cycle/pedestrian only’ courtyard giving an open plan feel to the centre.
Larger hire bike storage facilities to allow expansion of hire bike range and improve efficiency is seen as crucial to the success of the centre and the trail. Dales Bike Centre is ideally placed as the gateway to access ‘Swale Trail’, the Yorkshire Dales National Parks soon to open 12km off road cycle route.
It is expected to create a further five full time jobs at Dales Bike Centre and predicted to have a wider positive economic benefit to other local businesses.
Stu and Brenda Price have said: “We are super excited about the project, nine years ago when we opened we never envisaged the ride we’d actually set out on. From the early quiet days to now being busy with mountain bikers and road cyclists year round through to some of the events we have witnessed recently with Tour de France Grande Depart in 2014 and the totally awesome Ardrock Enduro weekend it has been an incredible time. With the future expansion it’ll make a stay here even better, more comfortable rooms for guests, much bigger café and lounge area, bigger and better bike storage and a sauna relax away those hard winter rides. The Yorkshire Dales and Swaledale is going to have top drawer cyclists facility we are over the moon the Yorkshire Dales Planning Committee supported our development whole heartedly.”
The Yorkshire Dales website itself is full of praise too: http://www.yorkshiredales.org.uk/living-and-working/other-services/press-office/news/recent/thumbs-up-for-dales-bike-centre-expansion
YDNPA Member Champion for Development Management, Robert Heseltine, said: “The owners and staff of the Dales Bike Centre have worked consistently hard to make the business a success in the past ten years. They’ve helped introduce many people to the delights of the National Park – its landscape, heritage and communities – and have provided a great boost to the local economy. When all the work is done, the Dales Bike Centre will be one of the Yorkshire Dales National Park’s best visitor destinations.”
YDNPA Chief Executive, David Butterworth, added: “Dales Bike Centre is a wonderful example of how a successful business can develop within the Yorkshire Dales National Park. It is a testament to Stuart and Brenda Price’s vision and entrepreneurship – and it is great to see their dreams come true. Dales Bike Centre offers outstanding opportunities to people from all over the country to experience the National Park.”
And from us, we wish Stu, Brenda and team all the best and look forward to staying over some time soon so we can have cake at both ends of the day…