Folk paying at trail centre car parks…..or not!

I’d like to think that access should be free of charge. Here in Wales things like museum admission is foc, payed for from general taxation. FC parking, footpaths and mtb trails should be the same.

I’d like that too. But like the public sector as a whole, the FC is being cut to the bone and needs to show itself to be worthy of funds or even *gasp* generate a profit. Unfortunately paying for parking is an easy fund-raiser, just as it is for local councils in town centres. It’s arguable that this is short-sighted and self-destructive, but then you could also argue that there should be better funding for public services so they don’t have to rely on other ways of generating income.

If you can ride to your local centre, then brilliant. If you can’t then you should probably factor in parking charges – if you’re driving 80 miles to get there, it seems a bit of a moot point on top of spending X amount on fuel, not to mention the costs of running a car.

£9 is now what it costs to get rid of three bags of rubble at my local tip. A day at Grizedale is starting to look like better value all the time.

Some of the ideas in this thread have put me right off socialism.

And FWIW I buy an annual Hamsterley pass and when filling in the details they know that I come for the biking and not (at least admittedly) for the Gruffalo.

£9 is now what it costs to get rid of three bags of rubble at my local tip. A day at Grizedale is starting to look like better value all the time.

Bit hard getting the rubble there on a bike though…

Bit hard getting the rubble there on a bike though.

You misunderstand. I drive there, pay the parking, then tip the rubble into the braking bumps. 🙂

If only the money from parking went back in to the trails. This might happen at some centres but none near me.

the FC is being cut to the bone and needs to show itself to be worthy of funds or even *gasp* generate a profit

problem with that of course is the perverse situation that if an activity is shown to turn a profit, it is quickly privatised. half the accounts work of the FC is probably trying not to make a profit. 😈

scottfitz – Member

If only the money from parking went back in to the trails. This might happen at some centres but none near me.

What if, the money from parking was used to… maintain sufficient parking so you could use the free-to-use trails. How would you get to the trail-fairy trails if there was no parking provided or the tiny car park was full to overflowing and blocking the road in?

Someone told me at Dalby only 50% pay which I was pretty shocked by, that’s across all users.

At Dalby you pay at the toll as you drive in. Unless they go in a different way i’m not sure how they avoid paying.

INMHO £2 parking is a billy bargain to park and ride the Swinley trails.

If you can’t afford that then you can park for free in Camberley and ride across Barossa to get there.

This is why I stay away from trail centre pish pay for parking and the people you encounter

But like the public sector as a whole, the FC is being cut to the bone and needs to show itself to be worthy of funds or even *gasp* generate a profit

From the FC website:

The Forestry Commission manages land for conservation, timber production, heritage and for you to enjoy. We are a non profit–making organisation and money raised from car parking goes towards maintaining visitor centres, play areas, bike trails and other facilities.

But you are right about government funding being cut to the bone, however this makes the making money from the forest estate part all the more important.

Best way to fund trails is to donate to the mtb organisation which maintains them, if any.

A few quid yes, I always drop a £1 or so innte donation cairn at Peaslake / Walking Bottom and was a Friend when I lived locally. I’ve made the odd donation to QECP and would have no qualms about parking elsewhere for free and riding in. Made a donation to Lady Canning and will probably never ride there (4hrs away)

More than a few quid for parking no. £10 for Theptford ? No idea what the riding is like but I wouldn’t bother to go at all. £15 a day in Alps gets me chairlifts all day. £25 at BPW gets me the uplift.

I prefer natural trails anyway and they are free to horseriders so why pay carparking charges for the odd red trail ?

Access is free of charge…arrive in/on a non-motorised believe and you don’t pay. You aren’t paying to use the forest, the fee is to allow you to park your vehicle in a parking space at a car park…if you don’t use the car park, you don’t need to pay.

Again, I don’t mind paying for car parking, but where the payment is only required of people using the MTB trails (where walking trails are also provided and maintained) I pay begrudgingly. I do bits of trailfairying where and when I can, although this year has been a bit hectic to manage anything more than chucking logs out of my way whilst on a ride.

philjunior – Member
Again, I don’t mind paying for car parking, but where the payment is only required of people using the MTB trails (where walking trails are also provided and maintained) I pay begrudgingly.

I haven’t encountered that before – where are car parking charges only levied for MTBers?

Many years ago somebody in the FCS tried something very cheeky with the Tweed Valley (Glentress/Innerleithen) annual permits. They were available with either MTB, horsey or walker friendly graphics. All were functionally the same (you didn’t need an MTB one to use the car parks when MTBing) but the one with the MTB graphic cost 10 quid more than the others. I don’t think that scheme lasted more than a year, though.

Tricky one this…the money doesn’t actually go towards trail upkeep, it gets swallowed up in the big machine and is used for whatever

It does at some centres, and arguably by going to the FC it’s in fact benefitting trails (and other outdoor woodland pursuits) nationwide.

the FC is being cut to the bone and needs to show itself to be worthy of funds or even *gasp* generate a profit…

But you are right about government funding being cut to the bone, however this makes the making money from the forest estate part all the more important.

Yeah, maybe ‘making a profit’ isn’t the best way of putting it, as it all goes back into the running of and development of sites. It’s not like there’s shareholders creaming off the top.

where are car parking charges only levied for MTBers

Up at Golspie. I visit a couple of times a year as it’s near inlaws. You can park at the town car park or the gravel car park at the trail head – not sure about the one at the trail head but the town car park I normally use (as it’s near toilets and a cafe and it’s nicer riding out from the town I think) is free to park but asks MTBers to pay and display.

It may be that the money is going directly to the trails, but I’d far rather have a suggested donation for this. (I kind of like a suggested donation as it takes the guess work out of a donation box.)

arguably by going to the FC it’s in fact benefiting trails (and other outdoor woodland pursuits) nationwide.

I think that as some people fail to see their pound coins being hammered in to the braking bumps and conclude that paying for their parking contributes nothing to the forest whatsoever.

More than a few quid for parking no. £10 for Theptford ? No idea what the riding is like but I wouldn’t bother to go at all.

Thetford, like other FC centres, is a lot more about other outdoor pursuits. Paying £12 to ride the trails at Thetford is not the best use of money as if you’re purely there to ride your bike you’re essentially paying to use all the other facilities. I’d pay it as my daughter loves the Gruffalo trail, playpark and the huge amount of open space. However, there is plenty of unmonitored free parking in the area, as well as a cheaper council run site, but obviously lugging a toddler and associated kit from them to the FC centre is a massive ballache.

Again, it’s an individual centre and it would be worth researching how TIMBER get their funds and support from the FC. The other element of this is that most of the decent riding is natural – the armoured trails are great as a signposted loop, but you’re far better off getting a local to show you round.

Like most things, it’s a balance and it’s up to you how you strike it.

I think that as some people fail to see their pound coins being hammered in to the braking bumps and conclude that paying for their parking contributes nothing to the forest whatsoever.

😆

True dat.

Up at Golspie. I visit a couple of times a year as it’s near inlaws. You can park at the town car park or the gravel car park at the trail head – not sure about the one at the trail head but the town car park I normally use (as it’s near toilets and a cafe and it’s nicer riding out from the town I think) is free to park but asks MTBers to pay and display.

It may be that the money is going directly to the trails, but I’d far rather have a suggested donation for this. (I kind of like a suggested donation as it takes the guess work out of a donation box.)

Can’t speak for the trailbuilders there but it’s private land (not FC, woot!) and I would imagine the funds do directly go back to paying for the lease of the land/supporting the mtb trails. I’m still amazed all that got built up there, the cost for the number of riders must have been very high! It’s very good though.

Suggested donation is a nice idea but given the attitudes of the people of stw, I would expect most donations would be £0.00 because I don’t carry change in 2016, I’m a socialist, I’m an arse, etc

” The FC is being cut to the bone “. Not at my centre. The waste in manpower and materials is huge.Nowhere do i see ” value for money ” decisions being made.
Somebody fly tipped an old vacuum cleaner.We couldn’t remove it,volunteers and the Forestry worker,but were told that a specialist hazardous waste ” team ” had to be brought in.Only one example but i could probably fill a page.

Not at my centre. The waste in manpower and materials is huge.Nowhere do i see ” value for money ” decisions being made.
Somebody fly tipped an old vacuum cleaner.We couldn’t remove it,volunteers and the Forestry worker,but were told that a specialist hazardous waste ” team ” had to be brought in.Only one example but i could probably fill a page.

But the part you don’t see is that anything to do with waste be it litter picking, emptying bins, fly tips has probably been outsourced. And in doing so there has been a corresponding reduction in staffing hours / funding somewhere in the district. So why would you want limited staff time being taken up doing something that is already paid for?

The situation at Swinley is a bit of a sad embarrassment. Basically the council pays people to stick you with fines. Thats it. Nothing more. In a nutshell:

It used to be free. Everyone liked that. It was good and worked because its miles from anything really useful, so it didn’t get abused.

They decided to charge for it. However they refund your money if you visit a council owned facility (so now its still free to many), but of course that diminishes the revenues considerably.

They take, I am led to believe, something a bit over 100K pa in fees after all those pay backs.
The cost to run the car park is somewhere around 100K. Yes you read that right. Its a huge number.

So what you’re actually paying for is people to check your tickets and run ticket machines. However, I suspect that the revenue from fines goes somewhere else, and isn’t included in the 100k, so actually, since the parking operation is not much better than net zero, what BFBC is basically doing is issuing parking tickets to raise money for the council. For me, thats not the job of a council, no matter how much money they need to raise.

I should say that under an agreement with CE the surplus is divided each year and half goes to CE, but that doesnt seem to be a great deal of money compared with the running costs of the car park.

Golspie is a place you definitely don’t want to get into “my parking money should go to the trails”- because the parking revenue is going to be tiny. We need places like that to stay on the “bottomless money pit” FC funding structure and “my £3 should go to the trails!” can only be a red rag to a bull that’s spent (educated guesses) several hundred thousand pounds on the centre and gets back a couple of hundred quid in a good week.

You should pay…. car parks cost money to run and some of the profit will almost certainly reach the trails directly or indirectly.

For example, at Swinley the council runs the car park, and passes a contribution to the crown estate who then contribute to trail maintenance. That’s based on what the trail team say….

You can moan about the costs of running the parking, but those costs would apply to any system – such as the previous permit system. Honesty systems are low cost but if people won’t pay parking with a threat of fines then they definitely won’t ever put into the honesty box.

Using general taxation to fund trails also means that the funding would always be at risk during lean times or change of government. Much better to make trails as self-funded as possible.

My philosophy on Glentress is, if I’m on my own I’ll park at Janet’s Brae, cycle up to Buzzards Nest and then buy food at the café.

If I’m with other folk we go to the car park, pay parking, ride and buy food at café.

No idea if that makes sense with their business models, but I just begrudge paying £5 for parking when it’s just me in my mx5

I’m an arse,

😐

I believe that the government should adequately fund public sector services to an adequate degree such that the public, who have paid for that funding, shouldn’t face further costs. The fact that this government is flying in the face of all common sense and forcing it’s own services to charge the taxpayer more money is insane. Similarly I don’t believe we should have to pay anything excessive (more than a couple of quid) for council leisure centres, or anything at all for NHS prescriptions or bridge tolls. Unfortunately there’s no way getting round them but needless parking charges are avoidable. So I avoid them. I have always paid at Golspie though, since it doesn’t get outside funding.

Calling people arses online is a much bigger disgrace than me not paying to park at Glentress.

That’s the problem with ‘common’ sense. it’s actually not common. People generally only want to pay of what they use. People only like the idea of ‘public services’ when it involves services they use, but not when it involves services they don’t use. Why should people pay more taxes to fund things they are unlikely to ever use. Pay as you go is actually the fairest and most common sense way of managing these things that a small percentage of the population use regularly.

Just suck it up. You want access to the countryside with convenient facilities such as car parks, litter bins, lighting, a cafe, managed landscape, trails, footpaths etc. then stump up your fair share and stop expecting others to foot the bill for you. If you use it that frequently then buy an annual pass and after 5 to 10 visits you’ve covered your costs and are quids in.

It still astounds me that anyone at all complains about charges at Swinley, be it the £2 charge for parking or the £2.50 for coffee. What you have there is an absolute GEM of a trailcentre in the best location possible for a massive number of riders, all brilliantly built, managed, maintained and looked after…. All for £2.

I mean seriously guys…

sr0093193. Litter picking has not been ” outsourced ” at my centre. Volunteers and staff do it.In fact,only 2 out of the staff of 6,do actually any work on the ground. The others appear top be sat in the office in front of a computer most of the day.

The FC also have a remit to promote recreational use on ‘their’ land…it was one of the big things that stopped them being privatised in the 90s and why access suddenly opened up.
The charge isn’t to use the trails/paths, etc. It is a charge to par your car…which also used to be free.
If people do have an issue with having to pay to park their vehicle then they need to park elsewhere and ride/walk in.
Depending on where you live, I’d suggest there is better riding to be had nearer you if you had to drive more than an hour…but like is said, depends on where you live.

ads678
At Dalby you pay at the toll as you drive in. Unless they go in a different way i’m not sure how they avoid paying.

They only man the toll gate at peak times (weekends, school holidays, etc), the rest of the time the toll is unmanned and there are ticket machines in the main visitor centre car park where you are expected to get a ticket before parking (if you are planning to park in a different car park).

I agree with an earlier comment though that it is frustrating that the annual passes are not for all FC sites. I’ve paid £48 (i think) for a Dalby pass but can’t use it at any other FC site, or don’t even get a discount.

munrobiker – Member

I’m an arse,

I believe that the government should adequately fund public sector services to an adequate degree such that the public, who have paid for that funding, shouldn’t face further costs. The fact that this government is flying in the face of all common sense and forcing it’s own services to charge the taxpayer more money is insane. Similarly I don’t believe we should have to pay anything excessive (more than a couple of quid) for council leisure centres, or anything at all for NHS prescriptions or bridge tolls. Unfortunately there’s no way getting round them but needless parking charges are avoidable. So I avoid them. I have always paid at Golspie though, since it doesn’t get outside funding.

Calling people arses online is a much bigger disgrace than me not paying to park at Glentress.

That’s great, a uptopia where everything is free, how do I get there? because at the moment its not, and just deciding you will ignore the facts and act out your life as if you are actually in an idealistic dream world would actually make you an arse 😆

he cost to run the car park is somewhere around 100K. Yes you read that right. Its a huge number.

So what you’re actually paying for is people to check your tickets and run ticket machines

Don’t forget that the council have to rent the land from Crown Estate who are the owners. It was never the councils plan to provide parking for a mountain biking facility and to be honest the charges are very reasonable, especially given that they plough some of it back into trail maintenance.

The answer to this problem is increadbly simple. Use mountain bike for there intended use. On mountains. All Mountain/XC riding is dead…….long live xc. Go explore new places and let adventure take hold.

I believe that the government should adequately fund public sector services to an adequate degree such that the public, who have paid for that funding, shouldn’t face further costs. The fact that this government is flying in the face of all common sense and forcing it’s own services to charge the taxpayer more money is insane. Similarly I don’t believe we should have to pay anything excessive (more than a couple of quid) for council leisure centres, or anything at all for NHS prescriptions or bridge tolls. Unfortunately there’s no way getting round them but needless parking charges are avoidable. So I avoid them. I have always paid at Golspie though, since it doesn’t get outside funding.

That’s lovely but it’s not the reality anyone lives in, you might as well be saying you believe that sparkling unicorns have built your trails for you at no cost to anyone, because that’s equally based on reality.

Calling people arses online is a much bigger disgrace than me not paying to park at Glentress.

I’m not sure socialism prepares one for the real world very well!

I believe that the government should adequately fund public sector services to an adequate degree such that the public, who have paid for that funding, shouldn’t face further costs.

I believe that too. However…

The fact that this government is flying in the face of all common sense and forcing it’s own services to charge the taxpayer more money is insane.

This is happening, as unfortunate as it is. And as said above – if it makes a centre self-sustaining (which not all do, to be fair) isn’t that worth paying a few quid for?

The FC also have a remit to promote recreational use on ‘their’ land…it was one of the big things that stopped them being privatised in the 90s and why access suddenly opened up.

Good point.

Somebody fly tipped an old vacuum cleaner.We couldn’t remove it,volunteers and the Forestry worker,but were told that a specialist hazardous waste ” team ” had to be brought in.Only one example but i could probably fill a page.

Welcome to the 21st century. I work for a private company that’s probably of equal size to, or slightly smaller than, the FC. I am not allowed to move my crap from one desk to another if there’s any sort of installation required (as in unscrewing and rescrewing an under-desk tray carrying cables), or lift a heavy pot plant while at work. Seriously. I’d argue that the FC fall into a similar bracket – the risk of legal action is too great, so you get in ‘professionals’ trained to do a particular job who are insured, even if that’s just emptying a bin or moving a desk.

Can’t speak for the trailbuilders there but it’s private land (not FC, woot!) and I would imagine the funds do directly go back to paying for the lease of the land/supporting the mtb trails. I’m still amazed all that got built up there, the cost for the number of riders must have been very high! It’s very good though.

Suggested donation is a nice idea but given the attitudes of the people of stw, I would expect most donations would be £0.00 because I don’t carry change in 2016, I’m a socialist, I’m an arse, etc

I agree that for the number of visitors it must get, it’s a very good facility. You might have a point about the suggested donation, but tbh there’s nothing that would have actually happened to me if I’d never paid in the car park!