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

Cool. So I can park half a mile down the road somewhere free and ride in – I don’t need to use the car park so I don’t have to pay.

Cool. So I can park half a mile down the road somewhere free and ride in – I don’t need to use the car park so I don’t have to pay.

Pretty much, Pickering, Alerston, Thornton, plenty of pubs to park at and have a meal afterwards, or park on the Farm track which links up with the trails where the black loops are to the south if you’re feeling really tight.

Pretty much Aracer…the charge is to use the car park to park your vehicle, so if you don’t use the car park then you don’t need to pay.

weeksy – Member 
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…

And I’ll say it again. That £2 (or £4 if you want a longer session) is NOT paying for Swinley, the trails, the café even. It’s just money going to Bracknell council and that is it.

The only money from the parking that remotely goes back to CE is thanks to surplus from parking fines, and even then it’s a tiny amount and doesn’t necessarily go towards any trail maintenance.

I mean you could say you go to a trail centre and just chuck £2 down the drain then claim you’re getting great value out of £2 because it’s such a great trail centre 😉

According to a post by the Swinley trail team in a different thread they do get some money indirectly from the parking.

The council contribute to the Crown Estate and the Crown Estate contributes to the trails. I don’t think it’s just a share of profits, it’s also the lease of the parking that the council pay CE.

And I’ll say it again. That £2 (or £4 if you want a longer session) is NOT paying for Swinley, the trails, the café even. It’s just money going to Bracknell council and that is it.

BUT, Bracknell Council have to rent the land from Crown Estate. Their intention was to rent the land in order to provide a car park for the Lookout. Then mountain bikers started using the car park so Bracknell Council eventually started to charge the mountain bikers for using the car park. You get to use the trails for free, you’re just paying the council to park on land that they are having to pay rent for.

TBH the amount that folk like Dead Kenny and Ben Pinnick use Swinley, I’m surprised that you haven’t understood the situation. If you don’t want to pay, have a look at a map, there’s lot of free parking around… 😀

I went to Swinley for the first time in years the other week.

I was pleasantly surprised the parking was only £2 and didn’t begrudge paying it, especially since I made use of the WC and got a good few hours’ riding in.

It was great to see so many families and newbies enjoying the trails and I bet it was considerably cheaper than their other Saturday morning entertainment options in Berkshire.

If others want to park elsewhere and ride in that’s totally fine. The car park probably wouldn’t cope at peak times anyway.