[Closed] Trail centres having more money to spend on the trails

The honesty boxes would be located in Wales. You couldn't make them strong enough.

I think Glentress used to have ticket machines that had buttons to add additional donations for the trails. I think honesty boxes can be awkward as a) how do you ensure they don’t get knicked, b) who will collect the money, and c) how do you get them emptied without the risk of the collector being mugged.

Depends a lot on the area I imagine, but I know Cannock Chase has had an entire parking meter ripped out of the concrete by thieves before. There’s a donation box at the trailhead [i]in [/i]the bike shop, not sure how successful it is though.

[i]The honesty boxes would be located in Wales. You couldn't make them strong enough.[/i]

Nah, thought of that - put them after the first climb; that'll stop the locals 🙂

there's one at penmachno, always put a fiver in.

What hora said.

Dalby (at least for me) shoots itself in the foot charging £9, I'd pay up if there was a car full or if it was £3-£5 like most other places
or we were splitting it between a car full, but not on my own when theres ~10 villages to park in for free on the perifary and ride in on the bridleways/footpaths.

Or is it just us?

Depends on your use of it I guess. They're clearly a very viable commercial concern as it is so I don't feel the need to expand that particularly. If used a few times a week that woudl get pretty expensive.

they are at Penmachno

£9 for Dalby? 😯

Nah, thought of that - put them after the first climb; that'll stop the locals

They have motorbikes. And stolen Vauxhall Corsas.

£9 for Dalby?

Is it?!?!?!?!? It was £7 last time I went! Look, I'm the first to knock people that park on verges and such like, but at £9 a day and there's only me in the car i'll be parking somewhere else 🙄

[i]If used a few times a week that woudl get pretty expensive. [/i]

What at £1 a day, you joke, yes?

In 5 years at Llandegla the honesty box took about a tenner.
The car parking meters were broken into about a dozen times before being stolen entirely!!

I wouldn't trust them to reinvest it in new trails/upkeep of existing.
I'd be happy to contribute if I was told "we'll build [i]this[/i] new trail [i]here[/i] but we need an additional £XXX, and cant build it until we have that much". I reckon a lot of riders would throw a good few quid at that considering how much we spend on bikes.

In 5 years at Llandegla the honesty box took about a tenner.
The car parking meters were broken into about a dozen times before being stolen entirely!!

Yep thats Wales for you.

They're clearly a very viable commercial concern as it is so I don't feel the need to expand that particularly.

You're joking right. Most of the (FC) trail centres get a big cash grant to build the trails and then that's it, hence the lack of maintenance. Income is tiny, e.g. 100 cars per day every weekend paying £3 ago would bring in around £ 30k. That's possibly enough to pay for one full time person doing repairs. Factor in costs of materials, equipment, car park upkeep, facilities up keep, cost of the parking meters in the first place and it's going no where.

As for building new trails it costs around £ 25 per meter using a contractor, materials and features are extra. If you were lucky that would give you an extra 1km of plain trail per year.

Income from cafes and shops pretty much (in most cases just about makes them a viable business). So no trail centre are not money makers. Charge car parking and then £ 10 per person and they might be.

That might sound a lot but compare it to parking in town and then going to the cinema for a couple of hours and you'll be paying similar.

stumpyjon whilst I agree with you almost entirely the car park revenue from say, Llandegla will be waaaaay more than that, even places like Whinnlatter and Grizedale will exceed that by some margin. I don't mind paying, but £9 a day is past that tipping point for me.

You're joking right. Most of the (FC) trail centres get a big cash grant to build the trails and then that's it, hence the lack of maintenance. Income is tiny, e.g. 100 cars per day every weekend paying £3 ago would bring in around £ 30k. That's possibly enough to pay for one full time person doing repairs. Factor in costs of materials, equipment, car park upkeep, facilities up keep, cost of the parking meters in the first place and it's going no where.

And that's assuming that the trailbuilders get a share of any money from the car parking, which isn't always the case, especially in multi-user forests where there's also walking routes, cafes, play areas, etc.

stumpyjon is pretty much bang on......

Another way is donation. I've made some fairly generous deposits to the Penmachno trails via their Paypal account, linked to on their Facebook page.

Has anyone mentioned the Treasury's take from the bike / parts sales in the UK ?.
And the fuel revenue from all you lot drivig to trail centres to park your cars, etc, etc.
Oh, and is there any saving to be had by the NHS for all us fitter, healthier MTB'ers ?.

What about the rent from the trail centre shop and cafe operators?

The biggest aid to most trail centres would be more volunteers to help improve/maintain the trails rather than cash.

In Scotland at least it's debateable whether the Forestry lot are empowered to charge for parking.

How about not paying and joining a build day instead ?

the money from glyncorrwg car park all goes to the fishing lakes. sod that, i park at pontrhydyfen for free.
dont forget we own the FC land, and they should provide facilities for us since it is a profit making business which is only viable since we have provided the land for free.
that said im happy to help dig and often do, just like im happy to pick up litter

It's rare I get annoyed, but moaning about paying £9 to park your £10k car containing your £2k bike having spent £40 on fuel to get there and ride on trails which cost £25/m to build is really quite pathetic.

In most places the trails do not benefit in the slightest from the car park money. The money goes to the FC centrally then each centre begs the FC for money to build and maintain its trails.

In the case of Bedgebury, the ONLY money we get to spend on improving the trails comes from people joining the bike club. For this you get free parking (amongst many other benefits) and the parking part of your membership is held in trust by the club and ringfenced for trail building. We get the most we can out of this by relying on volunteer labour, but riders are usually reluctant to join in, but happy to moan about state of trails/car parking costs.

Sorry, rant over...

the money from glyncorrwg car park all goes to the fishing lakes. sod that, i park at pontrhydyfen for free.

Where do you pay at Dalby?

Never noticed anything in the car park next to the 4x track.

boriselbrus - Member

It's rare I get annoyed, but moaning about paying £9 to park your £10k car containing your £2k bike having spent £40 on fuel to get there and ride on trails which cost £25/m to build is really quite pathetic.

Even when it's land passed to the FC by the Govt, i'e' owned by the PEOPLE, and the legislation doesn't even empower the FC to charge for parking?

In most places the trails do not benefit in the slightest from the car park money. The money goes to the FC centrally then each centre begs the FC for money to build and maintain its trails.

So what's the point in paying the parking then?

The biggest aid to most trail centres would be more volunteers to help improve/maintain the trails rather than cash.

This, also helps massively with new funding initiatives as the funding applications can show there is genuine menaingful local support. Hours put in by volunteers can also be used as match funding (many grants will only provide 50% of the cost with the other 50% having to met from other sources).

How about not paying and joining a build day instead ?

Something the forests in the North are putting in place as we speak. 3 dig days gets you an annual pass for your local forest, 5 gets you a pass covering many of the northern forests.

dont forget we own the FC land, and they should provide facilities for us since it is a profit making business which is only viable since we have provided the land for free.

Utter wibble. The FC don't often own the land, Gisburn for example is on United Utilities land. I don't know the details of the lease but I'd be surprised if it was free. We don't own the FC anymore than we own 10 Downing street, MOD land or the land our local hospital sits on. The only facilities they have to provide are those stipulated in their mandate from the government (moan at them if you want things to be different, not the FC, wasn't that long ago the Tories want to flog off the forests). That said the FC has given us many facilities. Again my detailed knowledge is limited to Gisburn but I know the FC has put several hundred thousand pounds into the facilities to date (along side significant money from other sources) with so far zero return. That doesn't include the generous support the local volunteer group has had, we have materials, tools and the FC team supporting us monthly. Then there's the repair and upgrade work the onsite FC team have done, all coming out of the Forests manpower and financial budget. Be a bit more grateful for what we have received for next to nothing already.

The car parking calcs above were based on a real scenario, and even then I think it may be on the generous side.

Final point, the Gisburn volunteers have now built approx 3km of technical feature rich trail, so a few of us have effectively given the equivilent of £ 75k over the last four years (more if you consider the extra costs associated with woodwork, berms and steps). On a good day a single volunteer can build 5m of armoured trail, thats £ 125 donated, makes the few quid car parking for the day seem mean in comparison.

One thing that may well be hindering spending on improving or maintaining these trail centres is the amount of dosh required to pick up all the litter lying by the side of these trails. I was up at Afan over the weekend for the first time in about a year, and I lost count of the number of different bits of rubbish lying by the side of the trail.

aside from donating dosh, one constructive thing to do is pick up a few bits near you when you stop. It all helps, and it also helps balance out the damage done by selfish farktards who drop it in the first place.

Why don't you form clubs to work with the trail centres and help build and maintain trails with them? 1 day a month with a good (and trained gang) can get a fair bit done!

IMBA UK do trail building courses and trail inspection courses which for members is pretty cheap!

This is a great way to work as you get to ride something you helped to build and sometimes build it how you like it... win win.

Grizedale had a donation box for the new DH line in the shop and the cafe..

It's rare I get annoyed, but moaning about paying £9 to park your £10k car containing your £2k bike having spent £40 on fuel to get there and ride on trails which cost £25/m to build is really quite pathetic.

What if it's a £3k car containing a £600 bike and only just too far to make it into a loop from home? Can it be pro rated?

The FC don't often own the land,

The public forest estate is land that is owned or leased by the Nation which we manage on behalf of the public.

I wish I understood how FC/FE works, particularly with regards sport and leisure. It seems to be made up of people on a local level just making policy up as they go along, with no real centralised direction or policy.

thisisnotaspoon - Member
What if it's a £3k car containing a £600 bike and only just too far to make it into a loop from home? Can it be pro rated?

Pro-rated whining, great concept!

Most of the (FC) trail centres get a big cash grant to build the trails and then that's it, hence the lack of maintenance. Income is tiny, e.g. 100 cars per day every weekend paying £3 ago would bring in around £ 30k. That's possibly enough to pay for one full time person doing repairs.

That's a start though isn't it? Maybe a Swinley style 'permit' system. Could even be a permit to cover a group of centres (7 Stanes pass?).

A couple of part time trail maintenance people would make a big difference to some of these places

One thing that may well be hindering spending on improving or maintaining these trail centres is the amount of dosh required to pick up all the litter lying by the side of these trails

Pro-rated whining, great concept!

But do I get 3x more winge as the parking is relatively 3x more expensive to me, or 3x less winge as I've spent 3x less overall.........

I only do about 1 skid about every 15km so can I get 50p off?

I'm a little rotund so I think I should pay a bit more.

Dalby was £7 about 3 weeks ago, but maybe it's gone up now it's summer 😕

You pay at the toll booth as you drive in.

I'd quite happily pay into a honesty box at coed-y-brenin, and due to thugs this will never happen so my advise to them would be to put there prices up at the cafe. What's an exta £1for a cup of tea?? I'm sure people can afford to pay these prices if they're riding around on £5k bicycles!! 🙄

As Simons-Nicolai says, what about a permit system like Swinley?

The permit there is £2 a ride or £20 a year, which i think is a more than fair price.

The land there is Crown Estate as opposed to FC, but they do contribute with equipment when it comes to trail bulding there.

I personally think that you have no right to winge about paying to use somewhere or moaning about the state of the trails if you yourself are not prepared to put the time in helping build and maintain them.

or as above form a club, get people involved, fight for what you want from your trails, but again don't just moan on a forum, put the effort into helping.

If you think about how many people ride Surrey Hills (Leith, Pitch etc) but how many of those are actually paid up members of Friends of the Hurtwood? 5%?

do they do that? Pay someone to pick up litter?

Yep, weekly litter runs at Gisburn, FC staff. Could be trail building if people took their garbage home.

Dalby was £7 about 3 weeks ago, but maybe it's gone up now it's summer

I stand corrected then, £7, still more than I'm prepared to pay, but then I do normaly end up paying that much in the bike shop/cafe. Whereas if I'd paid £7 I'd be doing a quick lap followed by jumping in the car and crying on the way home to to the feeling of being violated.

due to thugs this will never happen so my advise to them would be to put there prices up at the cafe

Stumpy, depressing that they need to do that

Whereas if I'd paid £7 I'd be doing a quick lap followed by jumping in the car and crying on the way home to to the feeling of being violated.

Why? Someone spent a lot of time and money building something that you can ride and you feel hard done by if you're asked to contribute towards the costs??????

[img] [/img]

This is a sheep, a heard of them creates a sheep track which you can ride a bike allong, an added bonus is you can eat them, especialy good stuffed with goats cheese mint and rosemary. Try doing that with a trail builder and they get a bit nervous whether you've paid them £7 or not*. Bessides £7 is for the toll road, going for a ride in the woods is free (theres a bridleway). All the £7 gives you is about 2 miles less riding and the ability to ride arround in a small circle in the car park, do a trackstand, wobble a bit and attempt a bunny hop before looking arround to see if anyone saw you**.

I've not problem with paying for trails (I've got my Swinley permit for example) and encourage people I'm riding with to buy one), but OTT car parking charges are different. And most of these trails are funded by EU/lottery/regional development grants so by spending £7 in the cafe I'm doing more for the original aims of the trals than giving the FC £7.

* I'm sure in some more liberal countries this service can be bought.
** You can still do this, you just cant do it next to your T5 for added trail center poser points.

10,000 points get's you the spice rack or cuddly toy

^ actual LOL

Oh and in other news I have a £20 annual pass for the FOD. Check me out.

scruff - Member

How about [s]not[/s] paying [b]and[/b] joining a build day [s]instead[/s]?

FTFY

scruff - Member

How about not paying and joining a build day instead?

Stainburn car park is a dope smoking hot spot, box would most likely get wrecked. A lot of trails have a group attached that take donations.

Gisburn - PMBA
Stainburn - SingletrAction

PS. There's also a lot of dogging at Stainburn, but i believe you can watch that for free. 😈

nearly 30 years ago worked on climbing wall stuff with british mountaineering council at a time when most facilities where very poorly designed and few and far between

- some similar issues in that many thought that local authority sports centres should provide facilities and that price should be capped - the suggested rate being the price of a pint of beer - the numbers never added up
others argued for free facilities built with volunteer labour and some pretty poorly located, sometimes unimaginative, and then badly maintained stuff did get built

then someone had the balls to open a commercial wall, big, imaginative and fun and people queued down the road to pay 4-5x price that many had said was way to much and now most cities have big commercial walls that are good facilities

not that i don't believe that FC, the Water co's and others that in effect hold land in trust for the people (my phrase not a legally correct one) shouldn't provide facilities for enjoyment - other than linking to tourist income there is no market driver

I'd be happy to pay something for using the trails, typically there is a charge for car parking and specific portion could be set aside for trails. As for £9, that's excessive unless I know say half of it is going to the trails. The vast majority of my riding is free on public rights if way or singletrack and in fact a daily lift ticket in the Alps is better value than £9 for parking and no chairlift.

Trail centres could put honesty boxes inside the cafe for example or have a Friends scheme or a donate web page

lets be honest though the best trail centres don't have cafes... (excluding scotland)

Not one person so far has seriously mentioned ride sharing. It's per car, so it's time to make group rides more organised and split the costs (petrol/entry) and let's face it, most group things are more fun done with company.

this is true.

unklehomered - Member
Stainburn car park is a dope smoking hot spot, There's also a lot of dogging at Stainburn, but i believe you can watch that for free.

You obviously hang around there at some unusual times, I've never experienced either in years of going there. 🙂

Yes it's our land, but if not for the FC the trail centres wouldn't exist (1)- we're not paying to access our land, we're paying for the value-added of the trails they've built on our land.

£3 for parking is an incredible bargain. That's less than half a cinema ticket.

The irony is that most trail centres make more money for the local area than they cost- I was amazed to read the Laggan report and discover that it recouped the initial build expense in a single year. But the problem is that this money goes to local businesses and local workers rather than to the trails, so when the hat goes around for money to build or rebuild, there's not a seperate budget of "money we made off trail centres". The financial argument for building trails is untouchable, but that's not always enough.

boriselbrus - Member

In most places the trails do not benefit in the slightest from the car park money. The money goes to the FC centrally then each centre begs the FC for money to build and maintain its trails.

That's a [i]heck[/i] of a leap of logical faith there. Parking revenue is an overall benefit to the FC, how delighted are they when people don't pay? How unlikely is it that this is a consideration when allocating funding?

@BANana really? weekday afternoons or evenings, sitting in the boot eating a sandwich between laps, 2 or 3 cars pull in, see someone's there, turn around and drive out... probably more workplace affairs than dogging, guy and woman drive in behind each other, turn round and leave. Or a car full of Youfs... See it loads... either that or they're scoping for bikes in cars...

Isn't the £9 parking charge for Dalby aimed at people who are doing the Forest Drive? There's another car park half way round the XC loop which has a much more reasonable charge.

Also you've got a bike park, a DH course, a black XC trail, and a World Cup XC course there. I wonder how much a privately run bike park with the same facilties would charge. IIRC High Action at Churchill used to charge a similar amount for a 1/4 mile loop of North Shore.

My understanding of Dalby is you don't pay to park, you pay for the toll road. The car parks are free.

From the FC/Dalby website

Forest Admission Charge

Car £7.00 6am-4pm £4 after 4pm March to October, £4 all day November to February

Grizedale is £6 or £7 to park all day and while its not cheap it seems reasonable for the facilities you get. Having built a few car parks I can see how they can justify the costs. Its pretty much a standard cost across the Lake District for popular spots.

Last night in Hawkshead we noticed the car park now has EYES! Yes some sort of SPECS numberplate recognition camera is watching the entrance/exits and you have to key in your reg when you pay. We got there at 7:4pm5 and you are meant to pay up to 8pm and strangley we didn't and I wonder if we will all get a £90 fine....

Its a shame about the risk to honesty boxes, as they allow people to contribute in times of person plenty (beginning of the pay month) and too still ride at the end of the month when maybe can't afford to go to the pub/see a film, but can just stretch to the petrol to their nearest forest. But as seems to be the case from comments here, honesty boxes more of an issue at unmanned sites, not places with VCs. Sadly I'm not aware of a truly secure model, i.e. forged in sky iron by an armoured bear.

Anyone aware of any? any cunning solutions? A sign about the local trailbuilding group may help but I think it would need to be something more immediate,

"yes I have a couple of quid in change in my pocket, yes I right now am buzzing from a ride and feeling gratitude."

later we forget or spend that amount on beer on the way home, huiman nature as much as anything. Also if a box looks like it will, or has been seen to get knocked off, i wouldn't want to put my money in.

I dug a 2 meter long "trench" that was a foot wide and maybe half a foot deep infront of my garage.

It was mud and rock. This was on Saturday, my back muscles and back of my legs still hurt 🙂

It must be a lengthy process to dig stuff and creating trails. Respect.

I actually just had a business idea. Ooo.

I think £7 is fair enough for a day out, Wife would pay that to park in York to go shopping and spend more money.

I have a pass which works out good value. I don't get why people moan about it, If you don't want to pay go ride the miles of moorland you've wasted petrol driving past to get to the trail centre.

Swinley might be charging for parking so, according to the rumours.

I think £7 is fair enough for a day out

It's all relative, and I think trail centre parking costs stack up very well against the price we pay for other hobbies/interests.

Whereas a parking charge of £7 sounds a lot on face value, in reality it's peanuts for a day's activity.

For example, my local mulitplex cinema charges around £7 for an adult to see a film ... and that's for only 2-3 hours 'entertainment'.

The cost of a Premier League football match ticket is ridiculous for just 90+ minutes.