AIMUp – Action for the Innerleithen Mechanical Uplift

http://communityforce.rbs.co.uk/project/1096

to develop a sustainable community based business model and feasibility report.

🙄

TandemJeremy – Member
to develop a sustainable community based business model and feasibility report.

what’s your point caller?

should have been in quotes.

Its not got the slightest possibility of being sustainable – the numbers simply don’t add up

TJ just called BS bingo on the article? 😆

Where are the numbers? It’ll have to be a pretty old chairlift to be economically viable though! Mind you Hillend is getting half a million to expand so there must still be money somewhere.

Its not got the slightest possibility of being sustainable – the numbers simply don’t add up

Better tell them that, they seem to be about to comission a report to look into it, could save RBS a fortune*.

*or not, it’s bonus season soon, so maybe this is a better use of the money than some quant or traders new 911.

If the numbers add up for soem of the ‘Ski resorts’ in Scotland that only open a few weekends a year, I’m sure a bike lift running 10+months of the year could make ends meet, especialy if it was funded by the government/lottery/RBS as it’l bring in money to the local economy too, I reckon there’s a lot of unfurfilled demand in the UK for a propper lift assisted bike park, just look at the number of uplift services on hills with 2 or 3 2 minute downhill tracks, I’m sure people would pay the £30+ day ticket price for a hill with 10+ 5 minute runs, and an uplift that kept going untill you were knackered.

bigjim – there was a load of numbers done in 2007 which killed it dead. Just ridiculous overoptimistic assumptions that still didn’t add up to a business case that worked.

Its someones dream and they are still chasing it it looks like but its dead in the water if you look at it with any degree of realism.

I’d love to see it – but its just not going to happen.

tinas

They are trying to get RBS to pay via its charity arm for another report.

The last effort in terms of a study was hotly debated on here and elsewhere, and seemed to be wildly optimistic in terms of the numbers of people who would use such a facility. Let’s gave it, the top of Minch Moor is not a tourist destination, the hills are not big enough or scenic enough to encourage anyone other than bikers and the occasional walker to go there.
In addition, the rising cost of transport will probably impact on the number of visits, especially given the lack of rail links to the area. Despite the vocal support, there simply aren’t enough downhillers to make it work for more than a few weekends a year.

there simply aren’t enough downhillers to make it work for more than a few weekends a year.

Well the uplift seem’s pretty busy? And it’d be a safe assumption that a charilift would be more popular. And thinking beyond downhillers, I reckon the weekend warrior crowd (me included) would happily pay for a day or two riding a ‘trail center’ without spending 2/3 of the time riding up fire roads.

tinas

In the plan as originally proposed they planned for every downhiller in the UK to spend 20+ weekends a year at innnerleithan for example

hundreds of sightseers a week every week of the year going up it just to see the view

125 000+ visitors a year. 350 people every day of the year.

As many people every day of the year as nevis range gets on a summers weekend IIRC

Hi TJ – not wanting to get into an argument but have you read the new proposal ? It has been updated significantly from the former proposals.

All I can find is a load of waffle – got anything more concrete for me to look at?

As i said – I’d love to see it happen.

I’m not against the idea, but its not sustainable in any sensible way; I certainly wouldn’t pay £5-10 for a lift when riding xc, and as noted above, there simply aren’t the numbers of people who would pay on a regular basis to keep it open.
Add £30 to the cost of a weekend, for 10? maybe 15? weekends a year? Plus transport costs, plus accomodation costs?
Sorry, but the best way to support that area is better rail links and more xc trails, not a lift.

OK, that sounds optimistic, but wan’t one of the figures quoted as something like £250,000 for the cheepest 2nd hand chairlift? That’s the same ballpark as a new 50 seater coach, so the numbers can’t be far off being economical.

Add £30 to the cost of a weekend, for 10? maybe 15? weekends a year? Plus transport costs, plus accomodation costs?

Given the costs involved with downhilling, £30 is pocket change

Add £30 to the cost of a weekend

There’s plenty of worse uplifts than Inners that sell out months in advance for that money.

£10 million for the chairlift.

tinas

yes – you can sell out a couple of dozen places on a summer saturday no problem.

300+ average every day of the year? who is going to do it on a wet novemeber wednesday?

Do the revised proposals take into account the Borders Railway and any kind of link to that? Would be a good idea, except they can’t find anyone that wants to build it, so it might not be around for a while yet…cue Scottish infrastructure project farcical theme tune…

Rail access isn’t going to help is it, you’ll only be able to put 4 bikes on each train and it will cost twice as much as driving.

in Scotland that only open a few weekends a year

ORLY?

£10 million for the chairlift.

£10.13million actualy. And if you read the AIMup website it says the new proposal is estimated at arround half that.

Why are people so negative about it? There’s the population at large who can be as negative about spending money on bikes, can’t at least MTB’ers be positive about it or we’ll never get more facilities?

tinas

Because its completely non viable. Its stupid to waste time money and effort on something so obviously non viable. For example the link above. Tahts money the RBS use to give to charities and community groups to allow them to make professional presentations. If this project gets that money someone else does not.

Have you seen what they are proposing instead of a chairlift now? Its laughable

that looks class!

and cheap! 😉

I’m surprised that no-one from AIMup is talking to the windfarm company that wants to build on Minchmoor. These developers are often able to provide ongoing community funding as part of the application, plus there might be some way of sharing access roads?

Sorry to say, but without this assistance, I can’t ever seeing it pay its way – even taking into account any benefit to the wider community. Oh – and it’s nowhere near the route of the borders railway.

we have a woods criss-crossed with trails, and traversed by hefty bikes, and serviced by a whacking great tractor-trailer and bus, and a mini railline is too far? i remember the feasibility studies because my former employer was involved in it. you can’t develop in the car park because it’s a floodplain. but the rail link won’t require a development on the floodplain. i commend their ingenuity.

£10.13million actualy. And if you read the AIMup website it says the new proposal is estimated at arround half that

Even at £5 million, it’s still expensive. Glenshee put a new chairlift in for £1 million

http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1676086?UserKey=

http://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/planning/apps/detail.asp?ref_no=APP/2010/0972#proposal

I’m surprised that no-one from AIMup is talking to the windfarm company that wants to build on Minchmoor. These developers are often able to provide ongoing community funding as part of the application, plus there might be some way of sharing access roads?

Its actually a planning requirement. However I don’t think that helping the creme of british atheletes I see in Inners car park on saturday afternoon up a hill for a spliff break will be seen as community benefit!

Rail access isn’t going to help is it, you’ll only be able to put 4 bikes on each train and it will cost twice as much as driving.

sad but true! however I would not assume that most riders have cars or access to cars, especially the teenagers.

I’m surprised that no-one from AIMup is talking to the windfarm company that wants to build on Minchmoor. These developers are often able to provide ongoing community funding as part of the application

what dreamworld do you live in?

Scout Moor (second largest land wind farm in the UK) had £30k for to be soent over 10years on environmental projects (not a penny spent as far as I am aware)

latest planning application for adjacent windfarm (Coronation Power) is going through with a max of £100k going to local school projects on the condition that planning is approved first time or else nothing. So far it’s been approved with no section 106 conditions.

Scout Moor part 2 (Peel Energy) no known local funding proposed

you will get 2/3 of sod all from a wind farm development because they know they can railroad it through anyway

i love the idea of a chairlift, but it would need more Dh trails to justify it, and to spread the riders out to reduce trail wear.

i’d rather see more swoopy ‘blue’ Xc trails.

as it is now, most mtbers are blokes, who need to get a party-pass for the weekend from their girlfriend/wife/kids/boyfriend so they can go biking for the weekend.

this sucks.

more blue trails means more opportunity to ride bikes with your better half.

how much for a chair-lift + Dh trails* at inners? £5million? £10million? something like that.

how much for a swoopy blue? (like the one at Glentress) £500,000? £1million (for a really good one)

for the price of 1 chairlift, you can have 10 more ‘blue’ trails – perfect for the wife/girlfriend/kids** who aren’t up for a steep sketchy red.

(*they’d need to be built properly for them to survive the amount of traffic needed to financially support the chairlift)

(**and anyone else who thinks that ‘electric blue’ or ‘berm baby berm’ is at least as much fun as spooky wood)

people do get funding from windfarms, there’s one i know about near duns (blackhill), but it’s not huge amounts/for massive projects as far as i understand – up to £15k, and for non-profit

there are other ways of funding, but there’s no way they would not have investigated these thoroughly..

Hmm weird maybe SBC aren’t so big on community benefits. Certainly in many LA’s it is required? I would have thought there would be a right broo ha if a developer was bypassing community benefit.

personally i wish them luck but my experience of anyone judging visitor numbers is its tricky at best and its easy to make a complete balls up of it. look at the GT visitor numbers (not to mention the much maligned Glentress Peel centre). Even their revised figure of 385k visitors a year is rubbish. an average of more than 1000 visitors a day? really?

source

this data is now 3 years old too and i’ll bet the economy has not helped boost visitor numbers.

what i’m saying is its easy to make “predictions” and estimate traffic, but they have to be realitsic if they want to convert these estimated figures into paying customers. In this economic climate people wont be spending 20 weekends a year downhilling with uplift, certainly not in the volumes that would make a 5 million pound chairlift viable.

How many would they realistically need to make it viable?

If somewhere like Carron Valley can get 10,000 visitors per year ( http://www.carronvalley.org.uk/pdfs/counters_and_research.pdf ) surely dedicated downhill faciltiies with proper uplift would get at least the same amount, if not substantially more.

10,000 x £30 = £300,000 of revenue each year

Does anyone know how much it costs to staff and maintain a chairlift once you’re beyond the initial outlay? Surely it can be done for £300k and still have something left for either repaying loans for the initial outlay or ongoing trail maintenance.

i still think that local bikeshops / BnB’s / pubs / cafes / skills instructors would get more out of a £500,000 innerleithen blue route, than a £5,000,000 chairlift…

Everyone just goes to GT for blue trails though.

Which raises the question – would it be better to go for uplift (and new DH trails) at Glentress given that there is already a cafe, shop, car park etc?