AIMUp – Action for the Innerleithen Mechanical Uplift

How Nevis Range makes money through the summer: several coaches a day full of the purple-rinse brigade spending £11 each for a return ticket then buying tea and cake at the top cafe. The only time they have to go outside is in the car park – easy money.

just revealing the hidden post

thanks, did wonder how I’d managed to break the forum 🙂

Not taking sides but just to pick up on one misconception- this scheme isn’t just for downhill, they’re proposing a similiar approach to Nevis and (soon) Glencoe of providing uplifts for all riders. The idea of uplifts being for DH only is already out of date, and getting more and more false as time goes on.

TandemJeremy – Member

Its simply not viable in any form to have a mechanised uplift at Innerleithan

Are the buses horsedrawn? (I keed! I keed!)

imnotverygood – Member

The country is going tits up big style at the moment. Nobody is going to pay for such a scheme. Get real!

Nevis Range was built in a recession. £500,000 just announced to revamp Hillend. Big capital projects create jobs, it’s not money that just vanishes from a budget and is never seen again- viability doesn’t require that the lift pays for itself or even turns a profit, because that’s only a part of the benefit. And in the grand scheme of things £5m is about 1% of ****-all.

Argument for: The Peel made no sense, cost more money, and yet was built. In fact, lots of things that make no sense and cost a lot of money get built.

Argument against:
It’s a bit bloody silly
£5,000,000 would pay for some much nicer uplift buses, a road that goes all the way to the top, and would build mile upon mile of world class trails to boot.

I put that one in bold because IMO that’s what really sinks the project- there’s a cheaper alternative which has already been shown to work.

Why don’t they just figure out roughly how much it will make and the build a lift in that budget? Now that’s British spirit! I seem to recall it’s not a great hill to build on in the first place (probably the biggest issue that hasn’t been addressed in this discussion). Plenty of theme parks etc. have lifts and funiculars that make up an miniscule slice of their budget pie.

Failing that cut some trails down the heights of Abraham?

much nicer uplift buses

It would be much nicer if they’d give a load of us a lift up there on a weekend seeing as they run from Northumberland