[Closed] Pentlands Hillend Mtb development. ?

10's of thousands?

Seriously - you need to get real.

Sorry, but this is just lala land stuff and that's before you even start on the politics / dynamic of a competing project down the road.

Dunno, think it might be more than tens.

As a rough base - what did spooky wood cost to build? Say you need 5-10 trails of that kinda level of quality to make it work etc. (if you're going to get the number of riders to make it work well, you need trails that can take it).

Yeah I would expect several hundred thousand. Apart from the planning and development costs, which would be 6 figures, I would say without doubt it would be essential to use the services of recognised trail designers and builders to build the trails, the cost of which is pretty staggering. I think it would be massively cheaper than the Inners project, assuming bikes can get the existing lift in one way or another.

A couple of miles of trail - Hundreds of thousands?

The key factors of course would be can the bikes go on the lifts and is anyone offical interested.

TJ

The thing is the innerleithan chairlift is not plausible/ viable - in my opinion

[s]tens of thousands[/s] who knows how much? not [s]tens of[/s] millions

FTFY

(incidentally, not commenting on overall feasability here, I just enjoy the discussion. I think feasability's too complex a subject since it depends so much on the fickleness of public funding- Hillend itself isn't really feasible even though it exists 😉 This is the part people forget)

You could do it [i]badly[/i] for tens of thousands, I reckon, then it'd fail. See: Glenshee, the Lecht. Throw minimal funds at it, get minimal interest. You might see it as a starting point but more realistically, what you get is a loss of momentum, and a counterargument- whenever you say "Lets add more trails" people will say "Nobody rides the ones we have", and if you do manage to build a second trail everyone says "But the old one was rubbish". Dead on arrival.

If you want any level of sustainability it'd need to be done right from the get-go.

£250000 is a good number- that's one Laggan. Not a bad benchmark for a starting investment, IMO- depending on ground conditions and layout that'd [i]probably[/i] put in a decent quality red, blue, dh and jump line, assuming all 4 are fairly direct.

Yeah I reckon Jeremy. I'm not sure of the planning requirements for such a development, I think it would be a Schedule 2 development or an extension of the existing Schedule 2, and thus require EIA if over 1ha in area (100m x 100m), in which case you are straight into spending a lot of money on that alone. As I said I'm convinced everything would ahve to be designed, planned and constructed properly by recognised professionals, seeing as this isn't going to be just some enthusiasts hacking through remote woods like at Inners, which even for a couple of trails would be a lot too.

Thats a good point Northwind - but there is not enough room surely for the amount of trails that Laggan started with

[i]life on hold for 5 yrs - it's not the new forth road bridge. It's a project with about the same complexity as building a shithouse in the woods[/i]
Based on your in depth knowledge of a something in this spehere I presume? Or just usual STW bolloxology? 😉

You'd be surprised how much time (and your own money) you can spend on a "minor" project as a volunteer. The one that broke me was (hopefully) a one off though..[url= http://www.carronvalley.org.uk/ ].[/url]

edit - wrong end of the stick

Like Northwind, I'm finding this interesting but don't have much to comment. If Hillend needed volunteer trailbuilders I'd happily lend a hand/shovel/mattock, as would several others, it seems. Until then, though, I'd like to encourage everyone to give consideration to other local volunteer trailbuilding groups - the Glentress Trailfairies, TJ's collaboration with the Pentlands Rangers (I hope that it continues this year), the Vat Pack in South Queensferry and probably some others too.

Like Chris just said, make a big effort with the current trails, they need it and build up a reserve of brownie points that show we are willing to work at something and not just for the benifit of ourselves. That will hopefully go long way when trying to persuade people of your good intentions and seriousness. If you try now to say "we want trails at Hillend" then some will just turn round and say "look at what you've done to the other trails in the Pentlands" and that'll be the end of the story. If we can show that ywe are trying to encourage responsible use of the existing trails and are doing as much as anybody to help maintain them then we give ourselves a better chance of getting new projects off the ground.

life on hold for 5 yrs - it's not the new forth road bridge. It's a project with about the same complexity as building a shithouse in the woods
Based on your in depth knowledge of a something in this spehere I presume? Or just usual STW bolloxology?

I can quite believe a volunteer trail-building project could mushrooom into a major commitment. Any Hillend project wouldn't really be in that vein, though - the prominence of the site and the existing ski centre means it would really need funding properly to get the green light.

>which is clearly bolloxomics in the other direction<

Says you. And you have been involved in how many similar trailbuilding projects exactly?

Ask any of the professional trailbuilders who have been associated with community led projects.

IME 5 years is very much the norm and that's one of the major reasons so many 'build it and they will come' ideas never make it beyond the internet.

I would expect it would take a year or two to do something like this. Consultation periods take up a lot of time, and then there might need to be periods of time in which people can make representations etc. Edinburgh core paths plan ran over a few years anyway, and that was just identifying a network of existing paths!

A year or two after what though?

I think you are making the over optimistic assumption that all this chattering will condense into a small nucleus of competent and highly determined people.... individuals capable of leading and championing the project. AND that they in turn will be successful achieving swift buy in from the relevant authorities.

We've already heard one anecdotal tale of Emma and Tracey being repulsed and they have more of a track record than 99% of those posting on this thread.

As the saying goes, if it was so easy then everyone would be doing it.

Not being negative just realistic.