[Closed] The loss of trails – Forestry Commission corporate vandalism

It is of some concern - I don't know about the area you mention, but in Thetford, there was a great twisty bit of singletrack that ran from near the Brandon Country Park car park to the bottom of The Beast on the black route. It was always our preferred route to get to the black if we were heading over to that side of the forest.

The last time we were there, it appears that someone (presumably the forestry commission) has driven a large vehicle of mass destruction down the trail and basically ruined it - trail features gone, branches everywhere & it's now a real mess. It doesn't look like part of their 'forestry operations' - it just seems to run directly along this fairly well isolated bit of singletrack. Really boiled my widdle, I can tell you.
It does seem to be in keeping with their idea of 'improvements' on the red route though, that seem to consist of cutting a 15ft wide swathe through the forest & putting in a road.

in reality the MTB community is very small.

outside of it no-one cares.

These are advertised as MTB trails.

Who do they think will want to use them?

If I want to ride in a park with the kids i'll go to the park. It swings and toilets and an ice cream van.

This place will just end up as a remote valley full of very expensive and unused 8ft gravel tracks. Give it a couple of years and the quad bikes will claim it back.

here's an example of the work in question
BEFORE
[img] [/img]

AFTER
[img] ?AWSAccessKeyId=0ZRYP5X5F6FSMBCCSE82&Expires=1267030605&Signature=o06lFhnht7aNFBne6D4LTW0a9C8%3D[/img]

Join a local trail advocacy group and do something about it ?

Looks fine to me...... 😯

What the hell were they thinking....?! That looks like a great cycle through the, erm.....countryside now.

How wide is the new trail? I can't judge from the photo but it does seem very wide. On the other hand, it always seems hard to believe when a hardpack trail is put down, but the undergrowth does start to reclaim everything except the ridden line in time. That looks wide enough that it won't narrow back down to the original width, but it's hard to judge.

Does the new topside drain mean that the old trail used to get pretty muddy?

Anyone else seeing broken photo links?

Yes, first one doesn't work for me either...

Shite!

First one did work for me - now doesn't.

Imagine a path about the width of your handlebars with BB height lush, green grass on either side of it where all that scrubby mess is in the 2nd pic.

it used to be very narrow and wiggly. Now it's very straight and 8' wide.
the pictures only show a fraction of the destruction. identical stuff is being layed throughout the entire (huge) area.

yeah on saturday it did have that real "grim up north" feel about it.

Shame. Henry Norman is our local sustrans guy - he might have some ideas/contacts about how to get your voice heard....

TH ygm

its nothing new - happening all over the country. check google for [url= http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=ogb37&meta=&aq=f&oq= ]OGB37[/url]

Hi I am from the radcliffe area and recently out riding along the Outwood Trail from radcliffe to Prestwich(the old railway cuttings)as you go under the Ringly road bridge coming from radcliffe on you right is a big valley me and my mate go riding down there from time to time went over there about 2 weeks ago and found that the Forestry Commission have knocked down all the trees to stop all the motorbikes from going down there and in the prosses f*@%ing up some nice mtb trails and it went up to the giant seat area as well and to top it off I think they are sending that new pipeline thru it as well 👿

1) Who owns /is responsible for the ground?
2) Are the trails Legal?
3) Are the trails illegal?
4) If answer to 2 is yes, who paid for them?
5) If answer to 3 is yes see 1....
HTH

Maybe a clue to the behavour is in the web address www.forestry.GOV.uk

Same at Haldon in Devon. Used to be ace, now it's dull shite.

I have exactly the same issues here in East Hampshire, The FC and the County Council are in the process of inflicting the same smoothed out wide paths where once were tracks that were fun to ride.
Your right when you say that in a couple of months no one will ride on them, but I promise you this, you'll still be paying for the maintainence for years and years.

We had a wide, flat "family" trail built a few years back as a fairly pointless addition to a challenging XC trail, partly because they had some left over budget to spend at the end of the financial year. My suggestion would be to see if you can get in touch with your beat forester, and let him know you're not happy - they can be a good way of getting your voice heard higher up the FC hierarchy.

I Agree with Mr Agreeable,

not all foresters ride bikes off road, but some do. and some of them may be on this forum

even those that don't indulge may be amenable to a well presented case 💡

most of the trail centres around today started from a discussion between local riders/trail builders and an understanding Forester.

additional,

sometimes FC does not own the land but is only a tennant. In that case they have to do as the landlord says, jsut like you can't have pets in a rented flat, sometimes FC is restricted in what they can allow to take place on the land that they manage.

It's their forest and they can trash the trails if they want to.

All I ask is that they don't then go calling it a world class mountain biking centre of excellence after they've turned it into a flat, muddy, off-camber joyless thing.

The Wyre Forest also seems to be suffering from similar, albeit they are not constructing 8' wide family friendly trails, just devastating the forest in general, will soon become the wyre series of copses with large areas of scrub land in between, seems every time we ride there a section of singletrack has been covered in felled trees.

The problem is very simple F.E are subject to ever increasing HSE issues and a lot of cocks using trail centres now are quite willing to try a claim if they get injured. Welcome to the “where there’s blame there’s a claim” world.
Most if not all F.E folk that are also mtber’s are good, sound, sensible people who just want to develop and provide more forest trails for us all to use.

abductee - Member

All I ask is that they don't then go calling it a world class mountain biking centre of excellence after they've turned it into a flat, muddy, off-camber joyless thing.

you referring to Sherwood Pines by any chance? 😉

F.E are subject to ever increasing HSE issues and a lot of cocks using trail centres now are quite willing to try a claim if they get injured.

Do you have some sort of inside info or is that just speculation? They are rightfully cautious (have you seen the average size of a payout for an injury causing paraplegia or quadriplegia?) and will take out stuff if it's causing loads of injuries, but some of the most challenging trails I've ridden recently (Stanes, Brechfa, Dalby, Gawton DH) are on FC land.

will soon become the wyre series of copses with large areas of scrub land in between

I'm not a forester but that sounds like either harvesting or management of some kind, not just random destruction.

IME they don't just build wide paths for the heck of it, they build them because they believe people will want to use them (and quite often they will have to put together quite a detailed argument to this effect in order to get the funding to do it).

If they're missing a big legitimate demand for challenging trails, the best way to demonstrate this is to club together and get your voice heard. The HTN mailing list might be a good place to start?

Oh and Sherwood Pines XC trail is rubbish, and was deserted when I went, but the DH tracks and jump area were getting loads of use. One shoddily designed trail doesn't mean they have a national policy of spoiling everyone's fun.

Cannock Chase has seen a huge increase in rider numbers since Chastrails came into fruition. The built trails have had some money and the FC are supportive of the volunteers, trails are OK, thats great.

Similar to Wyre, there are huge amounts of singletrack in the other areas and so much of it has been felled / brashed / harvested or just driven through by the contractors machinery. I guess 30% of the trails about 5 years ago are no longer there and there seems to be no let up in the contractors going into new areas.

Effs me right off as I built / maintained / pruned a lot of these trails myself. However its not my forest, for the most part the whole area is just a tree factory so for the riders it basically tough shit, suck it up.

We (HTN) attended a consultation meeting about 18 months ago. There was a lot of talking and a groovy PR type explained that it was all going to be fantastic and inclusive.

Hmmm.

Hopefully I'll be proved wrong. But all I've seen recently is a vast network of carpet smooth trails in the middle of nowhere. I can't think who will want to use them.

Time to find somewhere else to play I think.

unfortunately, as stated above, we're a very small minority in real terms and i doubt very much the forestry will be building trails for the likes of us in future. the recent work at haldon has meant we have a trail which is barely red grade, but it will encourage riders who are maybe on the cusp of getting more into riding to develop their skills, and ridden at speed it is fun. also fun if sections are ridden backwards, at night. 🙂
fortunately nature will reclaim this stuff. there is often little budget for maintenance, so the trails they build will get better over time.
for trails which are not being 'adopted', best thing to do is mark them up, using a spot of spray paint on the base of tress, on roots etc. that way it's easy to pick the trail back out of the carnage, and in doing that it's surprisingly easy to 'get trails back'.

Unfortunately the Grants now available for cycling/recreation are ALL family orientated - thus new cycle paths are like the Go Ape stuff accessable to EVERYONE. Our makeshift trails are no longer a quaint thing that some "kids" build. They have to be maintained to prevent accidents and thus litigation. Therefore offical trails cost money and if that money is not spend on something for the masses then its liable to disapear 🙁

I think we've got two issues here.

Trees are a crop. They get harvested after 20 years the same way that wheat gets harvested after 6 months. We're lucky that we can ride through them for those 20 years and can't really complain if the old trails get ruined and we have to create new ones.

If Halfords are the biggest UK bike retailer,it's not surprising the FC build trails to suit the people who buy their bike from Halfords.

harry, the groovy PR b0ll0cks is just that mate, there was a Scottish consultation over 2 years ago about a "framework for development" but its all just bureaucratic box ticking crap - absolutely nothing has been delivered by it.

these guys exists to perpetuate the civil service carousel and folks in FC et al spend their careers planning for things that never happen. the change in Govt every 4 years gives them the perfect cover to sweep all the previous junkets and **** ups under the carpet and start the same thing all over again.

I was part of a group that tried and failed to change this, and if you are involved still good luck to you sir.

[url] http://www.carronvalley.org.uk [/url]

Best to talk to FE about it although if they have started I suspect you might struggle to change anything (especially now a contractor is on site). However, as others have said, quite often a lot of people in FE know very little about MTBing and even less about any loose groups of riders looking for something a bit challenging. Get in touch and talk to them and you might stand a chance of saving something (by re-routing existing work) or if there's a next phase. Just hit the Forestry wwww and start ringing until you get to the right person. A beat forester is good but there might also be members of the area's recreation team involved. Dealing with either can be a mixed experience.

Just because it's a working forest doesn't mean trails and other facilities cannot or should not be preserved / treated as temporary. Anecdotal comment to me from a beat forester active in MTBing indicated income for "an area that might well include where you are" from recreation (so a lot of stuff, not just MTB) exceeded income from forestry operations for the first time last year. They're a Govt quango desparate to break even (never mind make a profit), so IMO cash talks.

I find this focus (and frankly hiding behind) H&S issues cobblers. MTB is an activity which posses an unavoidable, inherent element of risk. Most "MTBers" accept this and would not have a leg to stand on in court (IMO). It is very similar to a case regarding climbing on LA land decades ago. FE are only liable if what they have built is unsafe or unsuitable. Just because something is hard and someone might fall off is irrelevant, so long as some obvious precautions are taken (signage, information, grading). They would only be truly liable if what they built (or allowed to be built) caused the accident through its failure i.e. (extreme example) rider gets to top of northshore, structure collapses because it's not bolted together properly, rider injured, sue FE.

I'm no lawyer and that's just my opinion (albeit with some experience in H&S, building trails, dealing with FE).

FE will always try and build stuff that is inclusive to the widest possible user group (quite rightly, really). Pouring lots of money just into specialist, technical trails is hard to justify for the number of people likely to use (compared to how many might get into cycling from easier stuff) and the amount of revenue it might generate (families are far bigger cash-cows than "proper" MTBers, IMO). But that's not to say you can't use whatever they put in as a backbone for further, more interesting development.

Remember, FE managed land is generally free access. So long as you don't "build" a trail then you can ride where you like. Oh, and the majority of sites they manage are part of the Public Estate i.e. the nations i.e. ours.

I'm ranting. If you actually want some specific advice or help (maybe, but we're quite busy) email me timsellors[at]googlemail[dot]com.

Tim, SingletrAction

I can understand the FC effectively 'ignoring' the enthusiast part of the mtb market - We're a tiny group compared to the recreational riders and family riders that presently have few venues.

Its a sad fact that in the scope of economic development/regeneration of an area. Visitor numbers count, so they're really only aiming to get the most bodies though, ergo, we're marginalised.

I've parked any aspirations of a trailgroup in our area - It was already going the 'Lets-have-lots-of-meetings-and-do-nothing' direction.

We've just gone back to trail poaching and cutting/digging/clearing our own stuff as we see fit. Keeps us further off the increasingly badly eroded BW network more too.

Its clear that's what the DH boys have done down our way too. Its taken less than a year for the main DH track to be re-instated after being utterly destroyed by felling operations.

I guess this will be the net effect nationally after a while, as the interesting stuff slowly gets 'motorwayed', we're going to look to more off-piste stuff.

The FC develop the major trail centres like the Stanes, the Welsh ones, Dalby, etc and you get decent singletrack, trail features, etc. Generally they focus spending on these and derive revenue from MTB activities at these - ity makes economic sense for them. The rest of the forests/woodland is pot luck - I live near Wharncliffe and you find your own trails there and they change according to felling, weather conditions, etc. The FC has never spent any money on Wharncliffe for bikers beyond some signposting and they probably never will. I still love biking there though and you're free to go pretty much where you like (so far).

It was already going the 'Lets-have-lots-of-meetings-and-do-nothing' direction.

Sorry to hear that. FWIW, this was where the Bristol thing seemed to be going for a while, but then (after about 6-12 months) it picked up, and although there have been ups and downs it now seems to be going from strength to strength.

I'll butt out now, but - and this isn't a dig at most people on this thread - it annoys me when people refuse to approach the FC because of vague preconceptions ("they're all H&S jobsworths" being a favourite), sling a few brickbats on a website that nobody relevant reads, then complain that they're being cut out of the decision-making process.

One of those things Mr Agreeable. I think you've got a pretty good setup there, and fairly unique in terms of proximity to population, which counts for quite a lot on the funding side of things.

Our arrangements were rather less weighted by population, and were fairly quickly superceded by an 'Advisory Group' which involved all the institutional stakeholders and our group. There was much agreement of principles and even action to take, but nothing happened and it died. It seems that some folk were more interested in erosion monitoring and securing volunteer work for their purposes rather than ours.

Anyway, anything that might have been done would probably have been mashed by illegal 4x4 use by now. Its been pretty intense this last 6months. That's probably the biggest factor for cutting our own stuff TBH.

[i]Is anybody else experiencing this?[/i]

Yep, the wall at the witches trails in Fort William was flattened last April to this:

[img] ?v=1240323555[/img]

Don't have a before pic but imagine the base of a dry stone wall and that's pretty much what it was.
[i]
Can anything be done about it?[/i]

Doubt it...

To: lochaber.district@forestry.gsi.gov.uk
Subject: Witches Trail: The Wall

Hi there.

I was recently riding your trail, and noticed that The Wall section had been subject to some major sanitisation. While I realise the drive to have consistency in the grading of the trail centres within the FC's remit, I feel that this has spoilt what was one of the more entertaining sections of trails for experienced riders, as well as lowering the standard for events such as the Scottish XC Champs being held on the trails in June of this year.

Can I ask why this work was carried out, rather than creating a lower-graded 'by-pass' or parallel trail, leaving the technical sections as opt-in for those who wish to challenge themselves?

Thanks for your time, I look forward to your response.

FC response:

One of the criticisms of the trail network at the FC / Nevis Range venue was that apart from a short skills loop and miles of forest road, there is a big gap in the provision of grades of trails which allow less expirianced riders to build up both their skills and stamina. Conversley what we have an abundance of is red trails on FC ground including the soon to be launched new red route at Nevis Range and the existing down hill black.

As part of the trail review that we are undertaking nationally we held an open public workshop at the Lochaber college, and it was in part, as a response to feed back from this that we carried out the regrading work on this section. This means that we will be getting closer to a stacked loop system where we will have a Blue loop and the Red route starting from Nevis Range. Giving a better choice for the wide range of trail users and abilites that visit the centre.

At the same time we are updating the leaflet and interpretation panels to reflect these changes including a long overdue combined lealfet containing info for both the Downhill and XC routes as a one stop shop for info for visitors. Hope to have this launched in time for the world cup in June.

A quick response to what has been a lenghty consultation. Copied this to Kirsty Mann who led the review of the trails in case I have missed any points

Please don't hesitate to give me a call if you would like to discuss
further.

Regards

Craig

Craig Millar
Communities, Recreation & Tourism.
Forestry Commission Scotland
Lochaber Forest District
Direct 01786 222133
Mobile 07876 478230

To sum it up they had a brief local public consultation that few folk knew about (a lot of people travel from all over the UK to ride there) and decided to do what they wanted to do anyway. They didn't even consult the Scottish XC race organisers who use it for the Scottish champs course:

Bill Ross

I notice a comment from Craig Millar of the Forestry Commission, that they carried out an open public workshop in Fort William prior to carrying out the work. Well they didn't contact the SXC who indirectly represent a significant number of the racers in Scotland and as a consequence have failed to gain sufficient credibility for their plan. Over the past 3 years they have devastated the most technical sections of the course in an attempt to standardise the grading, however all they have succeeded in doing is making a fantastic course technically very easy.

Yep, it's about to happen in Sussex! A few threads downs from this thread.

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/tilgate-forest-mtb-paying-to-ride-there

fairly unique in terms of proximity to population, which counts for quite a lot on the funding side of things.

In the end it's been the prospect of boosting tourism, not population as such, that's landed the funding. Having looked quite hard at the grants that are out there, I'm still not entirely sure how they did it. Bristol isn't exactly off the radar for most visitors to the region.

Complimentary isn't it? Bristol is seen as a major hub, with good facilities nearby. Plus, there's the pressure of use from the native population which isn't going to go away, especially considering the relative health and size of the Bristol MTB community.

You mean complementary, right? 😉

That's kind of the mystery, the trails are well used already, and I doubt people will be travelling miles to ride the new stuff they put in. Not that I'm complaining, it's been a long time coming.

[b]The Wyre Forest also seems to be suffering from similar, albeit they are not constructing 8' wide family friendly trails, just devastating the forest in general, will soon become the wyre series of copses with large areas of scrub land in between, seems every time we ride there a section of singletrack has been covered in felled trees.

[/b]

it's a working forest though, not a trail centre, the Fc gets no revenue from mtbs, they get cash for trees though, they will plant more and the cycle starts again, you just need to be around in about 25 years time.

wasn't CG wanting us to support some trail building down south by the Fc, we tried to point out it would be a tarmac path but she couldn't see it

It would be nice if they were complimentary!
😆

The FC develop the major trail centres like the Stanes, the Welsh ones, Dalby, etc and you get decent singletrack, trail features, etc. Generally they focus spending on these and derive revenue from MTB activities at these - ity makes economic sense for them. The rest of the forests/woodland is pot luck - I live near Wharncliffe and you find your own trails there and they change according to felling, weather conditions, etc. The FC has never spent any money on Wharncliffe for bikers beyond some signposting and they probably never will. I still love biking there though and you're free to go pretty much where you like (so far).

LOL

The local guys, under the SingeltrAction banner, tried for several years to develop things at Wharncliffe. However, not even the support of World class DH legend and local Dr Peat was enough. Consensus on the ground with the guys who really pushed it was the problems were the Beat Forester not being interested (or made to be interested) and the support from Sherwood's Rec' Ranger (Chris Bray). Fair play he had the Pines to do but then again we didn't really need him to be very involved as we've built the odd bit of trail before 😉

There are still riders in Sheffield trying to make things happen (see recent Bikeradar article). IMO it is a crime proper development at Wharncliffe hasn't happened as it fits beautifully with all sorts of needs and desires. Sadly it seems to be an all too often encountered situation where FE can't or won't engage and would rather stick their head in the sand and not respond than come out with some straigh-talking honesty. Better to know clearly where you stand and why IMO.

NB: I think FE have done some great stuff and will acknowledge it where I see it (Dalby, Stainburn etc) but there's no point ignoring the bad stuff because that's what makes the biggest and longest lasting impression.

Gutting because some of the Sheffield locals put in huge amounts of time, effort and their own money to try and make it work. That FE have squandered all that is disgraceful.

I think FE often fail to appreciate and understand volunteers. We may well not appreciate them but at least they're paid and have a job description that includes dealing with us. The ball is firmly in their court / within their control to educate us. Volunteer groups can be great at informally policing and carrrying out much higher levels of supervision and maintenance than FE can for little to no cost. They also provide a route for engagement and education. But, if they don't give volunteers something (like trail projects to work on and I don't mean filling potholes and tidying up) then they'll loose all the engagement and goodwill and you'll just have loads of people doing their own stuff.

But, if they don't give volunteers something (like trail projects to work on and I don't mean filling potholes and tidying up) then they'll loose all the engagement and goodwill and you'll just have loads of people doing their own stuff.

Oh yes. That's exactly where we are.

Sadly it seems to be an all too often encountered situation where FE can't or won't engage and would rather stick their head in the sand and not respond than come out with some straigh-talking honesty. Better to know clearly where you stand and why IMO.

Agreed - I think everyone now understands only too well where the FC stands regarding trail development at Wharncliffe - they're not interested!

It seems to me that they cynically tried to get volunteers to solve some of their issues with MTB'ing interacting with other forest users under the mantle of trail development.

Your lucky you have access to FC woods. Both of my local woods have access limited to a short length of bridle path. All the rest is restrited as let to shooting syndicates.

It seems to me that they cynically tried to get volunteers to solve some of their issues with MTB'ing interacting with other forest users under the mantle of trail development.

think this is true and i'd be a bit unhappy if i'd spent my time trail building - positive outcome was that open access to wharncliffe woods was maintained and that mtb'ers showed that we could set up an effective body that could relate with other users and be sensitive to them

as to the general issue of trail sanitising a positive outcome is that it means that cycling is accepted and i would try and view the trails that are intended to appeal to a larger user group as a means of access to developing viable and non conflicting single track

this doesn't mean i'm 100% in favour of trail taming (and seen some shocking examples where it is unclear who benefits) - need to be on the front end of what is happening (hopefully like the newly formed Sheffield group) and input and get agencies at the planning stage to look at alternatives and keep all parties happy

[pennys]0[worth]

FC is a goverment body, we pay there wages in our Taxes, they dont put road tax on there vehicles, we own the forests, we SHOULD have a lot more say in what they can and cannot do.

Actually they do make money from the MTB community - although in the grand scheme of things it probably doesn't wash their faces by a long shot - paying for parking, paying for FC facilities like cafes (although admittedly there are very very few FC run cafes) - they do make money from us - if it isn't priced properly then that is their issue if they feel they don't make enough.

Want to put an event on (when I was doing this) - that'll be £1.50 per head on top of the fee charged for the permissions (wasn't a major issue at the time) so they are making money for doing nothing - the events had their own insurance so it wasn't even to give us insurance cover for the day.

They like to plead poverty but I'm sure there are many areas where vast improvements could be made that would save thousands and could have the money directed to more appropriate areas - whether MTB trails (for family, beginners, enthusiasts and pros) is part of that appropriateness remains to be seen...but it is a largely inefficient group (as is most government-based groups).