Been an article on Radio Miseryside this morning, on the Tony Snely show, about 8.06am for the iplayer.

Good info from the lady from the FC, and usual nimbyism from the delamere native.

No matter what locals say and think it will go ahead, there is big money involved for the comunity.

Hi all,

as an update – I was there – Project – did you go? You seem quite keen on the proposal – do you not worry at all about the forest experience being ruined by these cabins? As to paraphrase one german sounding guy ‘ it seems to be funny that the FC are encouraging more cars and less trees now..’

There was a TV report on it today as well. The FC will have a fight on their hands this time as other developments have been unopposed.

I went the meeting along with 250 others and the 2 x Fc reps. I really felt for the main FC holiday bloke as he was very genuine but out of his depth re questioning and he got flayed alive by cheshire exec types.

I was assured by him that our access would NOT change at all – however a number of the biking trails will be lost by the placement of these cabins. New trails can evolve etc but the feel of the forest will change.

Some questions were from ‘nimbies’ but an awful lot were normal types -runners / bikers / horsey types ( who are scared of bikes etc – I did my best to talk to them ) and reps from british orienteering who stated that if this goes ahead their competitions will end and nowhere else in cheshire can host them.

In a nutshell – 47 acres of woodland are under threat – a lot of the trees are however near their end of life and the area is a monoculture and ideal for development…. there will be more trees planted to add to the environment..

The FC chap could not answer basic ‘ business plan ‘ questions nor questions regarding lease / enviroment / Co2 studies etc. At one point the guy said access will not be changed nor will the forest character and we can walk where we want – to which a lady said ‘ i cannot walk thru any of these cabins’… they are HUGE in size – think size of a parish hall and not a twee little yurt – some are 2 storeys with treehouses…. If anyone can be bothered to look at the books of Forest holidays – they dont make a huge profit from all their sites combined – its not a lot condsidering their impact…. have a look.

The cabins will cost 1 to 2 k a week to hire and have space for up to 5 people and 2 cars outside on gravel hardstandings – total space for 300 cars. A service fire road will be upgraded to make room for the cars coming and going right through the main central artery of the forest – think about that – noise / disruption and safety aspect – people / horses and dogs / wildlife are at risk from this increased flow of hitherto unprecedented levels of cars – plus all the free parking on thee verges will be prohibited…

Positives for development :

Money into local economy – likely to be chester or frodsham = no local pubs unless you DRIVE through the forest – see above for concerns… the rail links the FC championed are just too far away to have any reaL success in the real world.

15 jobs – mostly from FC grad scheme and all the more menial jobs contracted out – its not going to have a big improvement on local employment in my opinion.

Money into the economy and also for the FC – which is a good thing…

I feel the cabins should be built elsewhere – on a brownfields site – a new visitor centre is def a good idea but bringing that number of cars / people into an already crowded forest is folly in my opinion. I ride / run there for the solitude and I dont want to be dodging cabins every 5 mins or having to look out for cars in an otherwise quiet secluded bit of the wood.

Its ironic that the cabins are being built for the ‘ forest experience ‘ but there very existence impacts that celebrated ‘ experience’. I doubt my night rides will be the same watching badgers and owls when theres a load of brightly lit cabins with cars coming and going all the time.

If anyone is intereted please contact the cadd website / email the FC direct. Watch this space. More info here http://www.cadd.me.uk/

paul

Just to add to this….

We had a long chat with one of the forest rangers at the weekend. Her view was that FC are doing this to pre-empt the possible Center Parcs development at Marley Tiles and to make sure that FC can maintain ownership of the forest in the long term. If successful, there is no way a Center Parcs development could ever happen – if FC are not successful, we could see a massive CP development that would destroy the forest environment for good…..

…I thought this was an interesting perspective & surprised it didn’t come up at Friday’s meeting (which I couldn’t get to, unfortunately).

I’m afraid you are wrong about the center parcs bit. CP will never develop another site in GB, the length of time for planning the woburn site convinced them not to bother again, and they have saturated the market anyway. The next site, if built, will be in Ireland (N or S).

In the big scale of things it doesn’t look like much of a development, from reading this thread it appears like its taking a huge part of the site. I think people forget that it wasn’t long ago we were going to lose all the woodlands, FC needs to start paying its way.

With regards to the CP site, due to the depth of the quarry lake at the old Marley tiles and any residual chemicals in the land / buildings etc the cost would be too great for them to even bother developing a site there.

😳

Snow Paul, its a tree farm , designed and managed fo the cultivation of timber to which the public are allowed access, as ive said before.Just like a farmers field.

Trees grow and are cultivated , and sometimes new trees are planted, but this scheme is to plant a load of cabins, and better facilities for ALL forest users, the wildlife will move to oher areas like when a new housing estate is built, possibly the one you live on.

There are also going to be a lot of jobs created during construction and the ongoing maintenance and hotel services of the site, jobs that are urgently needed in the rural area.

As for the rail links, why cant we have pedaltrikes or cargo bikes, or some electric ones to help people round, so there is no need for fuel powered vehicles in the forest, from the railway station, that hopefully will be converted to a metrolink to mancheter,with adequete storage of bikes on board.