Update! Derbyshire County Council – halts ‘repairs’ at Pin Dale!

I think there is some inconsistency here between Singletrack publishing an article about a council using the wrong material to repair a track in a National Park/SSSI and publishing a link in FGF 582 to a forum thread that actively encourages mountain bikers to ride ridgelines in the Lake District on paths they shouldn’t be on.

I dread to think what Cave Dale might look like once they’ve had a go at it.

Worst thing is they will have paid someone to bring in that crap and dump it there 🙁

I think there is some inconsistency here

Crossing land and dumping material are not the same thing, are they.

I mean, at Pindale you couldn’t be any closer to a supply of appropriate limestone material to smooth out that track, if that’s what you needed to do for access.

Does anyone know how to find which county council division (ward) you are in? I suspect i’m in Derwent Valley but that could be anywhere between Yorkshire Bridge & Shelton Lock. The DCC website is impenetrable a map or an option to enter a post code and get a simple answer would be good.

……outdated in your opinion

Whether that’s my opinion or not, the fact that it’s a civil offence means the only person who can say you should or should not take a bike on them is the landowner.

Really?

Yes. There’s a good set of scientific studies (Wilson and Seney, 1994 – Hooves and Feet Erode More Than Wheels; Chiu and Kriworken – No significant difference between hiking and biking trail wear; Goeft and Alder – Erosion trends not clear; Crockett, 1986 – Minimal change from repeated bicycle passage) that show that bikes either do no more or in some cases less damage than other trail users. It looks different, but it’s not worse. In fact, I only know of one study which says otherwise and that was only an undergraduate dissertation.

Have you seen some of the places you have been encouraging people to ride recently?

Yep, they were bloody good fun and in as good a condition as they ever were. Better than, for example, Rushup Edge and now Pindale after DCC dumped a load of stuff on them.

Jesus are they at it again. Why do they not learn, that’s an awesome descent

Pindale…. awesome descent?

I’m intrigued. I reckon it was an awesome climb about 9 years ago when it was rough limestone, but had never considered it as an awesome descent. Is this recently or many many years ago?

Email sent to my local councilor and my MP Robert Largan.

If you are local PLEASE make your voice heard.

Si

I think both those tracks are part of the High Peak constituency, so I’ll be e-mailing Robert Largan directly and I’d suggest other ST High Peak locals maybe do the same. He’s actually quite responsive on local issues, not least because he’s a few hundred swing votes away from losing his seat at the next election: robert.largan.mp@parliament.uk

chapel gate & rushup are deff in the high peak, i think pindale and cavedale just sneak in, but the constituency boundary for derbyshire dales runs pretty close to castleton iirc.

Lagan is my local MP as well so will send an e-mail, however i know that there has been a long and ongoing campign from the likes of PeakdistrictMTB etc, many of which have been wel thought out and considered opinions – has anyone got an overview of the key talking points to cherry pick from? – other than stop ruining all the bridleways in the Peak and horse riders don’t like it either!

what i don’t get is how DCC get it so wrong when there are some good examples of restorative works in the same area to take inspiration from – roychs clough and cut gate spring to mind

what i don’t get is how DCC get it so wrong when there are some good examples of restorative works in the same area to take inspiration from – roychs clough and cut gate spring to mind

First and foremost, cost. ^^that is cheap, the works at cutgate and roychs are not.

Also part of me thinks they haven’t got it wrong but very right*. The sort of work they’ve done here, at rushup and elsewhere has the very distinct impact of making the tracks and area in general less appealing for visitors of just about all outdoorsy persuasions (baring blasting feathered things).
There are a lot of people who do vote in that area, who do write moaning letters to the council, local paper and so on who don’t want us there, not on bikes, not on horses nor foot and not in our cars. Mainly just not getting in their way and generally making it look untidy.
It’s really not heard to see that if the jobs of the people signing off on this sort of vandalism are beholden to people who couldn’t care less about the works being done, let alone done in tune with their surroundings and very much could care less about visitors getting in their way, or noticing the raptors caught in those corvid traps and so on, that the “right” answer might be to do this. I’d like to be wrong but it really does feel like this sort of stuff is done precisely because it’s bad and makes the nimbys happy.

My post from the other thread this morning since we’ve separated…

Daft question but isn’t pindale actually a road? I always assumed it to be when I’ve ridden up it.

That is a terrible mess though and I can’t see they got agreement from Nat England given the SSI etc. That to me looks very much like they got agreement on (a) did (b) – easier to seek forgiveness than permission as it were.

Who enforces planning against the council?

(That said, if it’s from the road down to the quarry is it actually the council’s planned maintenance or rather the new owners of the quarry have done that?)

I really do hope they don’t do anything like that to cave dale. Though as well as being a bw and definitely not a road that’s effectively a stream bed so can’t see the above being possible whether DCC wants to or not.

*The part which thinks, depressingly, that government, even with the current bunch, is actually better nearer the top.

In summary then, unless there is a specific local bye-law in place, then bikes have as much right to be on footpaths as walkers do.

False… Kind of. Bikes are not illegal on footpaths but neither do they have a right.

Basically if it’s a footpath and you’re on foot then when asked to leave you do not have to because you have a right to use it. If it’s a footpath and you’re on a bike and are asked to leave then you must do so because you do not have a right to use it.

There’s all sorts of clauses and arguments and superseding local laws but that’s the bare bones of it.

Oh and also there’s a case in law that says cyclists may use the pavement if not doing so would endanger their lives. So riding on the pavement is both illegal and acceptable.

I think Pindale is in the Bakewll electorate.
https://observatory.derbyshire.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/reports/maps/IMD_maps_by_ED/H03_Chapel_and_Hope_Valley.pdf

Cave Dale is in High Peak and Largan has a surgery at noon on Friday in Glossop if anyone wants to pop down and ask for ‘help and advice’.
https://www.robertlargan.co.uk/events/glossop-advice-surgery-0
He’s generally pretty good at responding to email, so I’ll be taking that route.

a forum thread that actively encourages mountain bikers to ride ridgelines in the Lake District on paths they shouldn’t be on.

Well the more they make bridleways/byways etc into horrible unsympathetic roads the more we are going to want to ride ridgelines/footpaths etc so maybe they should stop.

Has to be said it didn’t look super-exciting to start with but it’s difficult to imagine how they thought what they have done is in keeping or worthwhile.

Give it a rest with the access rights stuff. If you want to argue about it start another thread.

Cave Dale? Guess I’ll have to make an effort to get there before it’s ruined repaired.

So the work was contracted by DCC… this is all their choice of action, not a land owner?

Well done to everyone who put pressure on DCC

Thanks Hannah (and everyone who’s got involved!) – I’m glad to see that a bit of pressure from us all has achieved something, of sorts. I still think we’re a long way from getting DCC to act differently, but let’s keep it up.

I had the same email, which conveniently failed to mention anything of Cave Dale, which is more of a worry for me. I’ve responded, asking if there may be a different approach. We’ll see..