[Closed] Malvern Hills waymarked trails

Looks good!  At least in so far as it goes - permitted cycle access in the southern area appears to be poor though

All malvern paths are legal after dark.

If you insist on riding there on a sunny Sunday morning when you can walk the length on the heads of day trippers.... Then be grateful for the extra crumbs!

😛

The Hills Trust did want to arrange a circular route south of the British Camp, which would have included more permissive access on their land but since some of the tracks identified meant accessing the Eastnor estate, they asked them for permission and Eastnor said no.

Good, but slow progress.

We're still left with the anomaly (PiTA) that many of the trails on the Hereford side of the hills are out of bounds purely as a result of the Herefordshire Rights of Way officer back in 1950-odd not recognising the need to classify the paths more appropriately. And no apparent rush to remedy now.

Equally good open trails and paths on the Hereford side as the Worcester side of the hills, many established for horses and donkeys (for the quarry works) so 'Bridleways' by any other definition, ridden thousands of times for decades by many cyclists, all mapped as footpaths.

"why do you need ti ride here, you've got sign posted routes you should keep too, that's what they are for" is always my worry when designated trails pop up in areas with busy multi user routes. hopefully any future conflict won't lead to corralling of cyclists to "cycle routes" only

Equally good open trails and paths on the Hereford side as the Worcester side of the hills, many established for horses and donkeys (for the quarry works) so ‘Bridleways’ by any other definition, ridden thousands of times for decades by many cyclists, all mapped as footpaths.

Reading the article on the front page and for many years I've wonderd this about the malverns paths. Why they are footpaths and bound by the MHDC by-laws, in the first place given the historical usage of most of the paths on the hills and how they go about reviewing and updated based on usage, or not as the case may be.

I do think the permissive path setup is a step in the right direction however.

hopefully any future conflict won’t lead to corralling of cyclists to “cycle routes” only

This is a worry. One would hope that the waymarked trails better manage visiting cyclists, in the same way that forest trails manage mountainbikers. This should mean that walkers will expect to regularly see bikes on certain paths, and conflict minimised. However, waymarking trails can cause a few dickheads to think the trails are there for MTB's, ride inappropriately and inconsiderately and cause conflict.