Funding Cuts To Welsh Trails Confirmed

We’ve been reporting for a while that there were extensive budget cuts threatened at Natural Resources Wales, the land manager responsible for most of …

By stwhannah

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Funding Cuts To Welsh Trails Confirmed

I know it’s an investment thing again, but I can’t help thinking if they were able to take a few leaves out of BPW book and build some dedicated dh trails and uplift then things might really pick up there.

Years and years ago, before bikeparks like BPW were a thing, we used to go to Afan where there was a guy running a business (Gilbert) doing uplifts. More like a taxi really but he had access to the forest tracks .This was great for us more dh-focused riders.

Maybe an element of that might start picking things up at CYB?

Don’t know. Shame for all.

Rode Afan back in March with trail closures ( on the Wal) and chatting to some local riders stating how miss managed it had all become, such a shame. However the little hub cafe half way around was still open, fortunately.

With respect to the visitor centre- is this not just reverting to the original setup at cyb, when Sian and Dafydd ran things? Weren’t we all up in arms when they lost the lease? So this is at least in part a good thing? Or am I missing something?

With respect to the visitor centre- is this not just reverting to the original setup at cyb, when Sian and Dafydd ran things? Weren’t we all up in arms when they lost the lease? So this is at least in part a good thing? Or am I missing something

Absolutely shocking chain of events. Booting them off, **** it up then leaving everything ****.

Does the original shack over the road still exist, or has it rotted away. Will they get to use the new building?

Aside from everything else, gutted for the 120 people who are about to be put at risk. They have my sympathy, a lot of organisations in this sector (including the one I work at) are downsizing to cut costs. It’s going to be a tough job market for a while.

I’m still struggling to understand how they managed to set up a business model that couldn’t run a centre like cyb profitability. I hope those who are at risk find something suitable quickly.

Headline doesn’t quite match up with this:

you would hope that the budget doesn’t affect those responsible for trail maintenance, but that remains to be seen.

And is there any indication whether the community bid to run CyB cafe/VC might be favoured?

 

Well that sucks……..

Is the bike shop at CYB staying?

It’s disappointing that NRW’s board have signed off the planned cuts to their recreation budgets and the subsequent restructure, which, amongst many other things, will mean the temporary closure of their visitor centres. However, thanks to many different organisations’ efforts, hopefully we’ve collectively made NRW’s board and the Welsh Government aware of the implications of the cuts. We’re hopeful that when NRW finalise their post cuts-and-restructure plans over the next few months, they won’t be as bad for mountain biking as they would have been otherwise. However, in any scenario, once those plans are clear, we expect there will be more coordinated action the mountain bike community will need to take to secure the future of Wales’ trails, so watch this space.

That’s a quote from me, Robin Grant, Chair of the UK MTB Trail Alliance.

It’s a shame the Cafe’s and Centres will close, mostly because of the staff losing their jobs.

I’m not surprised though, they’re generally not great. Someone mentioned EU funding above. Yes a lot of the newer centres got built with EU funds, you’d think with an effectively free building you could run a cafe at a profit, but it’s not the case. It’s seems a symptom of EU / Public funded facilities, they will invest in grand, usually too large buildings but because funding is usually a one-off thing, there’s no money to run or maintain them.

IME the Cafe’s, I’ll say it how I feel it, they’re crap. Service is slow and unenthusiastic; food has a strong school dinners vibe, prices are at the higher end, which you wouldn’t mind if it was better.

Alternatively, the privately run Cafe’s at FOD / Llandegla are really good and generally busy.

MTB riding in Wales is changing. NRW are now more willing to work with local riding groups to grant licences for ‘wild trail maintenance’. In South Wales at least BPW is sucking up all the weekender business, but the semi and unofficial places are becoming more popular as they offer a better riding experience from better maintained trails.

Fair point by @siscott85, cafes at FoD, BPW and Llandegla are usually both busy and have keen staff. At some other cafes, I’ll not mention which I think, the staff just come across as uninterested, a bit like the food they offer.

Didn’t several of the enthusiastic holders of café leases in state-managed forests notoriously lose their leases before things went downhill? It feels like a common pattern: a small start driven by passionate people who then get squeezed out after the local amenity they contributed to has become more established and recognised; followed inevitably by a collapse presided over by distant bureaucrats and shoddy local franchise-holders?

I’m not sure I’ll notice the difference. The last time I visited Nant yr Arian on a Saturday in August the cafe was shut and from my last visit to CYB I’d rather head to Dolgellau for lunch. They appear to have changed in the same way as Glentress has rather than sticking to the traditional stodge and cake like Ae, or having decent pizzas like Kirroughtree. Friendly, interested service goes a long way too.

I think things like cafes work better when run by small local businesses who run cafe’s rather than large govt organisations. Thinking about visitor centres round my way the county council run ones I wouldn’t bother eating at but ones where the food offer is leased to a local cafe are often much nicer. Places like CYB need the cafe to be as much of a draw as the trails in a way. That would suck in passing visitor trade as well as those who go for the biking.

It’s slightly baffling why NRW are running the cafes in the first place?  It’s not exactly the core business of an environmental regulator, is it?   With government procurement regs setting up suppliers for things like milk and bread would be a nightmare, so what tends to happen is a regional/national contract for a single supplier is made, with poor quality ingredients to keep costs down!

It also seems short sighted to close them, rather than lease them as ongoing concerns.  Not having faith that facilities are available will likely reduce overall visitor numbers to the site,  cutting off nose to spite ones face, springs to mind.

It could easily take a decade to recover from this, with all the dependant businesses suffering along the way, from shops, accomodation, food outlets and all the local supply chains of those businesses.

One can only hope the trails themselves survive long enough and well enough for the rest of the economy and trade around them to recover.

also seems short sighted to close them, rather than lease them as ongoing concerns

Local community group wants to operate cyb, this news doesn’t give any indication of whether that is being explored – I did ask in my comment above.

Currently riding at CyB for a couple days (yes in the snow). The visitor centre including the cafe is still very much open and despite closure being confirmed no date has been set. Beics Brenin very much there. Trails are riding brilliantly. Use it or lose it

Talking to a local riding on the trails, one local business who already runs pubs/catering locally put in a bid to run the cafe but was turned down. Another local business is currently still applying.

Funding Cuts To Welsh Trails Confirmed

So to confirm are the ‘trails’ being cut or is it just the visitors centre?

The trails are not being cut. The visitor centre is.

Thanks @Anne for the update – we are heading down this weekend for our annual pilgrimage to North Wales.

I am probably in the minority but I visit CyB because I still enjoy the trails as they are, and don’t particularly need an uplift or extreme gnar here – we go to Antur over the hill for that.

Banner on the NRW CyB webpage states…

“Retail and catering provision at three visitor centres managed by Natural Resources Wales will remain open until March 31, 2025, and will then close.

After closure we will launch a public exercise to look for partners who may be interested in helping to run these services at Bwlch Nant yr Arian, Ynyslas and Coed y Brenin in the future.

All paths, trails, car park, play area and toilet facilities will remain open at the sites and we are holding public meetings to update communities on November 25, 26 and 27.”

The trails are not being cut. The visitor centre is.

so completely misleading thread title.

Stuff like this is no better than the MBR stuff.

people will read the headline and the think that’s the end then. No point going, which is far from the truth

Personally I couldn’t care about a visitors centre, I went there to ride bikes. But I always stayed local and supported the local economy. Headlines like above make people not even go to the area

Thu @ 5pm: Online Public Meeting on future of Coed y Brenin & Nant yr Arian

Hi everyone

We wanted to let you know that NRW are holding an online public meeting at 5pm this Thursday, 5th Dec, on the future of Coed y Brenin and Bwlch Nant yr Arian:

We are holding an online public meeting to update communities on the future of Bwlch Nant yr Arian, Ynyslas and Coed y Brenin visitor centres.

The online meeting will start at 5pm on Thursday, December 5 and you can join via this link https://orlo.uk/Y8K09

This meeting will cover the same information provided at public meetings recently held in the local communities and will include the chance to ask questions.

If you’re at all interested in what happens to these important parts of the UK’s mountain bike infrastructure, then please attend the online meeting to show your support!

NRW have also set up an online consultation page, which may be updated with some FAQs before the meeting, and where they give an email address for people to ask questions ahead of the meeting.

NRW are currently saying that, although they’re temporarily closing the cafes and visitor centres while they look for new partners to take them on, the trails themselves will remain open and continue to be maintained. Given the budget cuts that NRW have committed to, we are sceptical about NRW’s intention and ability to maintain the trails on an ongoing basis, and thus whether they’ll be able to keep the trails open in the long run. That scepticism seems to be shared by the local businesses and communities around the trails.

Thank you in advance for your help on this.

cheers

Robin

Robin Grant
Founder & Chair
UK MTB Trail Alliance