IHN – added to contact list
Wilko1999 – need your email address.
We sent out a “Cranham Update” notice to local mountain bike shops last night. Owners have been asked if they could print off and stick in a prominent place in their premises.
Natural England should be erecting some notices in the Woods as well soon saying we are in discussions about future MTB use.

Of course – jameswilkinson30@hotmail.com

Cheers!

Spent 2 hours on a recce around the area today, and mainly on Buckholt Road. Two from Bigfoot were finishing off the trail mapping also I understand. Bumped into a few riders and also a group from Gloucester City CC. They weren’t overjoyed at hearing the news of what is going on but agreed that in the best interests of future agreements, they would refrain from taking their rides to Cranham until further notice. Also spotted loads more of the A5 warning notices around. More than I originally thought there were. NE have informed me that they will supplement/replace these with notices stating our current negotiations. Lecky was nice on the way back though…

Thanks to all those who have contacted us wanting to be on our contact list and offering assistance when we need it. I’m sure there are more out there who would benefit from being kept upto date with our progress. Us is referring to CC-CC and Bigfoot at this stage.
We have requested another site meeting with Natural England as early as possible to actually look at a section of the tracks and demonstarte their minimal impact on the area.

Cheers Roger, you are a legend mate!

Pls add me to the list – thanks for the great work you’re doing!!

Will.j.newellATgmailDOTcom

Roger,

May be worth re-sending the email about access to CC-CC as I am a member and have not received an email from them about this subject and don’t really visit their website.

This will then hit more of the user base and should prevent us needing to tell members when they are seen on the trails during recce days.

I am not sure what Bigfoot have done but this may also be the same

I have been using CC-CCs MTB (and ROAD occasionally) Yahoo groups to communicate the situation, and some information is on the home page of http://www.cc-cc.co.uk. We can’t obviously get everyone captured via email but word will spread eventually. Our realistic objective is to demonstrate to NE and any concerned landowners that we can do our best to get messages out to riders and I believe we have a good network developed already. I have 25 individual riders on email now, about 4 clubs and 8 local MTB shops.

Bigfoot also have a statement about Cranham on the news section of their website.

Rog – you got AshtonMTB on that list? Not sure how often they are over that way.

B you got any contacts with Ashton?? No, not on my list yet. Will Google them as well.

Could you add me to your email list please…ride there with a few friends so need to keep the peace for the future.

Good work.

Ashton only know the way round when I show them 🙂

Worth letting them know though, I’ve dropped their Appropriate Adult a mail.

Cheers IHN.
Appropriate Adult.. Last time I heard that there was a Fred West docu drama on the telly. Jim Bowen in the woods is bad enough!!!
Still no response from NE today. Gonna give them a call tomorrow to make sure they are still on the planet. Think one of my contacts could be on leave but not certain. Momentum is our key if we want riders to support us and stay away in these early days.
Will be on another recce this Saturday seeing if I can flush our some more who are not aware of the situation.

Hi,Im the “Appropriate Adult” IHN refers to at AshtonMTB, but as he says we only usually ride it when he is guiding, but please keep me updated through my e-mail address brianDOTbunnATvirginDOTnet and I will keep our group updated

Hi Graham.
Not sure if you have my details already but if not here they are
mike.farrugia@hotmail.co.uk

I ride regulary with the Bramblers MTB group from Bussage and will spread the word to the boys and girls.

Any support you need just ask and i /we will try to help out in anyway that we can.

Needless to say all the people that are getting behind this are all doing a fantastic job. Fingers crossed that we can come to some agreement on permisive trails in Cranham, its such a great spot and its our “local bit” of singletrack.

Best Regards

Mike

It’s been a bit quiet on the update front recently as we are still awaiting a response from Natural England over the trail maps they now have. A big thank you to all riders and groups who have made re-arrangements to their ride routes as a result of this issue. Wherever you have been riding we hope you have still been having some fun. Days starting to get a tad chilly now though!!!

I know CC-CC has XC routes on its website if you fancy seeing what else is about the area. There may be something new to try in the short term??
http://www.cc-cc.co.uk/content/routes.php

As soon as we hear from NE we’ll post here and send out to our email contacts. Cheers.

I had a response from Natural England today. They have been discussing our trail network with relevant land owners and will be in a position to put forward the tracks for potential agreement in the New Year. I have no indication at this stage of the number of trails we are talking about though. We’ll keep the pressure on.

Hope you all have a great Christmas and New Year.

Cheers, Roger.

Nice one for the update Rog.

B.

Just seen on Bigfoots website a recent photo of new signage that Natural England had agreed to erect now we are in negotiations. It is formal recognition that we are all talking now. Happy Cranham Crimbo to all of you. Roger.

Happy New Year to all.
Took a stroll through the main tracks over Christmas with the kids and was happy to see (although it pains me to say) that I saw no MTBers riding the trails. There were a few fresh tyre tracks though. Thanks to all those who have made the effort to divert their winter rides from this area. It is a credit to us as a local biking community. No pain, no gain as they say. So the new year is hear and we are eager to hear what Natural England have to say!!!

I went for a walk today with my kids and it was strange to not see any tyre marks. Although there were a lot of horse prints off the bridleways and I did see a crosser tyre mark near the stream.

Theyve cut loads of the foliage down all over the place and the racetrack foliage looks thinner than a fasting anorexic!!

do you know what they are building at the sawmill?

Just checked the local council planning website (stroud) and they are building a fancy house and a lake in the grounds next to the sawmill.

Case of NIMBYism?

Case of NIMBYism?

yes.

Stroud planning link

http://www.stroud.gov.uk/docs/planning/planning_application_view_binary.asp?URL=%2FWAM%2Fdoc%2FDrawing-679650.pdf?extension=.pdf%26id=679650%26location=VOLUME2%26contentType=application%2Fpdf%26pageCount=1%26appid=1001

dont know if this will work but im assuming the blue line would be there ownership boundary…

house does look nice though…Ricard and Catriona obviously have a LOT of money if they can afford to do this

S.10/1513/FUL

planning application no

Wonder if they’ll try to divert Buckholt road in due course 😉

Can we expect to see this on ‘Grand Designes’?
and if so Who’s up for a bit of filming interupting 8)

I have a feeling it may not be a home for them and is going to be a money maker for them!

As long as they don’t try to sell it in the Spring / Summer / Autumn….

I can see it now –

Beautiful architect designed residence with 100 acres of fast flowy singletrack complete with potentially very busy cafe / bike shop retail unit potential at end of driveway!

This may not be the PC thing, but is English Nature don’t pull there finger out and come back with an answer then i can see me just riding in the woods regardless. I wouldn’t want to feel that somebody was taking the piss.

wait a minute, just noticed the date on that planning application, 28/7/2010! i can’t remember ever seeing a notice put up?

I was under the impression that councils were duty bound to ensure adequate advertising of all plans?

and looking through the various applications why do they say not advertised? Maybe i am being cynical but when councils are meant to allow the public the opportunity to object makes me wonder. Then throw in that the woodland was sold after the planning application was submitted.

as for them having money,

their old house

The old vicarage, Badminton

hoooweeee this continues to get more and more interesting. thanks for the updates roger.

There is a business registered as cranham woods. Says its a real estate business registered in the tysons names. Found it online ages ago but cant remember where. I also noted several other business names registered.

been a bit bored,

so

Meet Mr Tyson

also a director at

Wingpark Ltd.

His wife

Catriona,

obviously likes to stay busy.

I am getting the impression that money isn’t really an issue, not when the last house sold for 2million.

So to continue,

applicaton form

If i read this, they didn’t own the land and submitted an application on the back of an existing, and looking at timescales i am assuming expired application made by the previous land owner.

Disclaimer time – this may not be the correct planning app (does seem likely though) as i was bored on friday lunchtime looking through stroud dc planning apps

PS Roger, has portway been mentioned to EN, dont know whether to try to get them as recognised routes and risk loosing them or not to mention them and risk not getting an offical trail on them

PPS would your correctiveroger name be from a certain group from chelt way…if so when are you and mr hazle up bushy next id love to come and help out in the next week or 2, baby coming in 4 so would be better sooner!

v666ern, the next bushy dig day is on the 15th – see the facebook group for details 🙂

Dave

Alfabus, thanks chap…um any chance you can email them over… bigvern52 at hotmail.com

i dont do facebook…there i said it its out there! which is going to make keeping up to date with this tricky but deffo want to help out and im free this sunday

Its a dig day for the XC course, Alex and Barnaby are leading this one, and I’ll be doing the next one in February (I can’t make this one).

The XC is coming on nicely, I marked the whole climb out in November, and we made good progress clearing and bench cutting in December – there are a couple of hundred metres of trail which are rideable now (albeit pretty technical and quite hard! lots of switchbacks and tight tree sections). Hopefully we’ll push it all the way to the top before the ground dries out and gets too hard to dig.

Meet at 10am at the car park and stay as long as you can.

Dave

edit: Sorry Rog, this is a bit off topic for your cranham thread 🙂 any excuse to plug the XC track at bushy!

Yeah, we’ve got a dig booked on the 15th at 10am. All welcome to come and help. Bring a spade. I’ll add you to the email list, but haven’t been using it for a while.

Edit – Looks like Dave beat me to the reply… Bigvern – YGM

If anyone’s looking for ride inspiration that stays away from Cranham…

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/blimey-remember-them-the-stw-cotswold-massiv-this-saturday-14th