Anyone volunteer with the Forestry Commission?

Just got the chance to do some volunteer trail maintenance at Hicks Lodge with the FC. Quite looking forward to doing something different and “putting something back”, to use the cliché.

Anyone done something similar? Tips on things to do/say or possibly avoid?

I would love to do some voluntary trail maintenance in our local FC woods (as would maybe 30 other local riders). Shame the FC don’t share our enthusiasm…

Well, someone persuaded the FC to build trails at Hicks Lodge a few years back. Maybe worth seeing what the FC are prepared to agree to and get discussions started. Never going to get a quick and simple “yes” when you first ask, I guess.

colour noise+1
Have done in the past, various projects in Mabie and some stuff @ Dalbeattie. No interest shown since last Mabie repair days 🙄

Colour noise

Where is your local wood and who did you ask? What did you ask to do? FC are pretty stretched after last round of funding cuts (2011).

Forest of Dean at Pedalaway has a thriving FC and local trail team.

Yep, it’s really rewarding, we’ve built over 3km of trails. We’re very lucky though and have a committed FC beat forester who has a passion for the trails.

yeah, quite a few. nice bunch locally, and it’s good to feel like you’ve made a contribution to something that’s going to give people pleasure.
the turnout numbers are pretty low though, as you’d expect, as they’re on thursdays. 😐
after going back to full time work i do a couple/year.
they’ve been talking about doing volunteer days at the weekend for ooo… about 6 years?

burko73 – Member
Colour noise
Where is your local wood and who did you ask? What did you ask to do? FC are pretty stretched after last round of funding cuts (2011).

We are East Midlands. FC cycling guy who oversees our woods also looks after (AFAIK) Thetford, Sherwood and Cannock which all have thriving volunteer groups. We’ve tried twice now to work with them and got a flat no pretty much both times. EDIT – We even went to the lengths of forming an official club (out of a casual group of riding mates) and getting CTC affiliation and insurance just to show we really wanted to get involved.

They have built a short blue trail but it only gets minimal maintenance and they won’t even currently entertain us just maintaining that as a starting point.

The last conversation with the FC ended up with (and I paraphrase, but not much) “if you want to ride more interesting or longer trails, drive the 2 hours to Cannock”

Yep, I do and have been for the past few years at Whinlatter. I was, like most people, starting to say ‘somebody should sort this bit of trail out’ etc then saw a sign for volunteers. Now I’m a somebody lol!!
Just go with the flow and have a go at things such as pitching and digging. It isn’t all building massive berms and jumps 😉 although you do get a bit of a say in some trail features 🙂

We’ve got the trailfairies at Glentress, one of the longest established FC volunteer groups. I always say the same thing, I don’t do it out of duty or virtue or anything, I just enjoy it, I wouldn’t if I didn’t. But that doesn’t stop me being all holier than thou 😆

FC buy-in’s very variable and you can see why tbh. Even for us it can be difficult, hearing about volunteers basically turned away is always sad but worse is established groups being basically run down like Trekster’s, their work was superb 🙁 Even we had it a bit, one of the reasons our membership fell was that the number of sessions had to be cut due to resources. But then again, they’re quite reasonably worried about safety, liability, etc. We’re in teh middle of a long drawn-out process to get some independence and work with volunteer leaders instead of/in addition to rangers but we’re not there yet.

Oh yeah, I do a bit of guerilla gardening and repairs and that locally, I don’t ask permission because I wouldn’t get it. I don’t dig new trails though, I just look after what’s there.

Colournoise – you must be covered by the same regional team as we are at Hicks Lodge? Ultimately it’s “their” land to manage as they see fit but I’m surprised that they don’t want any help to maintain, let alone improve.

MoreCashThanDash – Member
Colournoise – you must be covered by the same regional team as we are at Hicks Lodge? Ultimately it’s “their” land to manage as they see fit but I’m surprised that they don’t want any help to maintain, let alone improve.

Yeah, would have thought it’s the same area (we’re at Wakerley Great Wood in East Northants).

Wouldn’t mind if they ever gave a decent reason other than ‘cycling isn’t our priority there’. I do actually suspect it’s something to do with the land’s ownership but why they just won’t tell us that and be done with it I don’t know (having said that they have as I said built a short blue trail so it can’t be that much of an issue).

FC buy-in’s very variable and you can see why tbh. Even for us it can be difficult, hearing about volunteers basically turned away is always sad but worse is established groups being basically run down like Trekster’s, their work was superb

Cheers Northwind 😆
Got flamed recently on a FB page for suggesting our trails were looking tired, told go ride a road bike(which I’ve done for 36yrs). On the same page there is now a growing number of riders complaining about the overgrown state of the same trails. The Hardrock Challenge is coming up in Oct and we usually do some repairs for that but the trail is really badly eroded now, good for locals, not good for casual visitors as they were all created for.

I attended a forest users day at Ae at the tail end of last year, the only biker to do so!!!! Chatting to the FC staff there they seemed to be more concerned about their own jobs than what anyone was suggested, standard reply to any suggestion= no money……..

Wow you guys have it tough, we run our own dig days in addition to the FC ones, have full access to the forest and equipment including power carriers, get materials delivered to site (often a contractor and tracked dumpers). We get quite a lot of say in what and where we build. And we get free chocolate and brews and free parking passes. We’ve had first aid training and free T shirts, did I mention the chocolate biscuits?

Stumpyjon – can I be in your gang?

Kielder by any chance? I get power barrow envy every time I see a facebook update from them…

Colour noise. It might just be that the wood you’re riding in isn’t owned by the FC but is leased by them. This makes things harder to sort out.

Other thing is that believe it or not it does take quite a bit of resource to manage volunteers properly. You do have quite a bit of responsibility for them, their actions, what they build etc.

All the forest districts are pretty spread out and if every wood had a group of volunteers to manage and trails to check and sign off, sort out CDM regs etc there just isn’t the resource for that. I guess you have to be realistic and manage things where you can sometimes. Also a lot of dealing with wild trails and unreasonable un permitted big stuff ( gaps etc) means time dealing with that and no resources for other projects. It might just be your late to the party and there’s not enough resource.

I have some contacts, I’ll follow if up if I get 5 minutes. No promises but you ought to get a straight answer at least.

I’d struggle to willingly volunteer to get involved with any FC these days…usual answer is resource or money and lack of both, but reality is it is a power!control thing. They have a real fear of being outdone.

I say this with 3 years trail fairy experience way back at the start and then heavily involved in another project for about 9 years and various other projects along the way…trailbuilding and volunteering is fantastic, doing it with FC involvement is less so than getting involved with a land owner that isn’t the FC (which is much harder to do as there are fewer of them).

If you want to get your hands dirty, give something back and feel a personal achievement, then please get involved – in any trailbuilding you can; for FC stuff, be prepared for a lot more control over what can be done and what is actually done.

I’m involved in a local volunteer group for a private land owner and the trailbuilding is utterly brilliant, small group of committed people meeting fortnightly to graft and chatting almost daily with ideas…it is hard graft and can be slow going but it feels very satisfying seeing what has been achieved.

Get involved where you can!

Northwind – Gisburn. We have 2 Honda power carriers at our disposal, brilliant bits of kit, make a huge difference, did I mention the biscuits?

Our secret is definitely the head forester, he enjoys trail building as much as we do. Our land is leased as well from United Utilities, it can add another layer of beaurocracy.

burko73 – Member
Colour noise. It might just be that the wood you’re riding in isn’t owned by the FC but is leased by them. This makes things harder to sort out.

There is certainly mixed ownership at Wakerley. As I said, I assume this is at least part of the issue but not had it confirmed.

I have some contacts, I’ll follow if up if I get 5 minutes. No promises but you ought to get a straight answer at least.

Many thanks if you get the chance.

Just such a shame if we are never able to improve the trails there (or even reinstate what was once officially there but never maintained). Quite a lot of potential even if it is fairly small and fairly flat. Certainly enough to create something that would alleviate the need to drive to Sherwood, Thetford or Cannock (at least 1 1/2 hours away) for a decent fix of twisty, wooded singletrack.

I’m guessing there is nothing natural near you that does that? If not, that is a real shame.

Have you tried the health/wellbeing angle or see if the area would be suitable for some WIAT funding? If money was able to be provided to support the cause it might make it easier to get something moving.

Only natural riding we have round here is edge of field bridleway stuff and the odd tiny pocket of singletrack in isolated woodland…

There are obviously a fair few ‘off-piste’ trails in the woods, but along with them goes a whole obvious grey area and the club would rather work with the FC than have pockets of local riders building disjointed, unofficial stuff.

stumpyjon – Member
Northwind – Gisburn. We have 2 Honda power carriers at our disposal, brilliant bits of kit, make a huge difference, did I mention the biscuits?

We get home baking 🙂 but no power barrows 🙁 .

Our secret is definitely the head forester, he enjoys trail building as much as we do. Our land is leased as well from United Utilities, it can add another layer of beaurocracy.

It does seem that the considerable regional variation in the amount of engagement provided by the Forestry Commission can often be down to how enthusiastic individual people in important positions can be. But stretched resources still tell – both of the Tweed Valley’s MTB rangers never seem less than passionate and committed to the Trailfairies but they’re just one and a half people (one’s part time) with a lot of duties to cover, so managing a volunteer group will not always be top of their priorities.

colournoise – Member
There are obviously a fair few ‘off-piste’ trails in the woods, but along with them goes a whole obvious grey area and the club would rather work with the FC than have pockets of local riders building disjointed, unofficial stuff.

Institutionally the FC appears to be very concerned about its duty of care responsibilities. Not just the duty it’d have to any volunteer trailbuilders it facilitates but also the duty of care it has to those who rides the trails it sanctions. The ongoing commitment to ensuring that a trail is safe and appropriate may lead some FC people to be reluctant to encourage trailbuilding that they have official knowledge about, hence which they assume a duty of care for.

Also depends what you’re ‘building’. if all you’re actually doing is clearing some lines, effectively riding the ground, not cutting down trees, and just taking advantage of natural features, any problems ‘should’ be minimal.

What we have initially asked previously, is to help maintain the newer blue trail and also reinstate (eventually improve) the older red trail at Wakerley which has fallen into disrepair. Large parts of the old red are still ridden regularly but it is a shadow of its former self. There is currently very little other new trail building going on, and what is is being done by ‘rogue’ individuals.

Nail on the head burko73

Up until our FC contact got involved with CDM and enforcing it(becoming a trainer etc)we were OK. I can appreciate his reasons for backing out of facilitating volunteer groups, as he said once during our last repair job it was becoming a nightmare both in time at work and giving up his weekends and time with his young family. As people were leaving the dept his work load was getting larger and with a number of Stanes and other smaller forests to look after it was becoming more difficult. Thanks AndyH

I’ve been volunteering with the Forestry for the last 2 years.
Normally two days a month,five to six hours each day.
It doesn’t involve trailbuilding as thats done by a local club,but we do at time undertake maintenance.
Over the time i’ve become a bit disillusioned with it.
Its so badly disorganised.Volunteers have turned up to work but you can spend half your time just standing about or going home early.
We’ve never had a manager turn up and say ” thanks for helping,we appreciate it ” In fact it seems to be the reverse ,as if you are a bit of a nuisance for them.
The different pay grades are made very apparent.We can’t use a certain vehicle,even when its stood doing nothing,because its used by someone on a higher grade.Its all very petty stuff and really frustrating.
I still enjoy turning up and working outside ,but myself,and other volunteers,see parts of the forestry organisation as just a jobs creation scheme.