Did they get much in setting up ? Do they get much in day to day running ?

Genuine question, I hope the answer is ‘Nothing’ and ‘nothing’, otherwise the Wales trail centre thing is over. 🙁

so many questions only a few days too late

Wales was a net beneficiary of EU funding.

We already answered these questions, its our money and we get back £10bn less than we pay in

OP the question should be whether future elected UK governments would continue to spend the same amounts. I personally rely on a UK government than Brussels for funding decsions

Wales was a net beneficiary of EU funding.

Yup and it voted to Leave

Question 2
How many of these projects has any UK government funded?

OP the question should be whether future elected UK governments would continue to spend the same amounts. I personally rely on a UK government than Brussels for funding decsions

Well apart from when its you that has to bear the cost, then you run away and hide in low tax exile. But as long as its other people suffering, that all fine.

Genuinely want to know. I guess they’ll sweat the asset, so the trails will return to nature.

The reason why the EU funded these projects in the first place was because the government wasn’t or wouldn’t. Pre referendum there was all ready grumblings by the government that they had no control over what this money came back to fund and that they wanted the money to come back into central funds to be spent there.

Anyone who thinks any of this money would have then been spent on mountain biking needs to go see a doctor.

How many of these projects has any UK government funded?

All of them, its our money. We give the EU £1 and they give us back 55p

Try answering the question, put money into those areas. The areas that governments have dumped on for years???
We know how much stock to put in lies/claims/promises that the grants/funding will be maintained after an exit

Please, jambalaya, make your statements in correct English. Otherwise I can only infer that your statements are as accurate as your grammar.

Does anyone know if this chap actually rides a mountain bike ? He does come over rather roadie…

Isn’t Afan funded by EDF or another energy company? My understanding is that they’ve put aside £300k for ongoing maintenance and I thought they funded the initial construction too.

The total ‘Cognation’ project cost £4.3 million and received a contribution of £2 million from the ERDF. The ‘Cognation’ brand was developed to promote the mountain bike market of South Wales.

Within Neath Port Talbot, Afan Forest Park received large scale investments through the Cognation project, including the refurbishment of the Afan Forest Park Visitor Centre, the creation of family friendly mountain bike trails and improvements to existing mountain bike trails.

Costing a total of £22 million (which used a contribution of £13.3 million from the ERDF), Valleys Regional Park delivered an environment and heritage action plan to create a high quality, sustainable network of green space across the Heads of the Valleys and Western Valleys Regeneration Areas.

A number of projects were delivered specifically in Neath Port Talbot, including improved interpretation and facilities at Aberdulais Falls, stone artwork installed throughout Afan Forest Park, resurfaced paths at Gnoll Country Park, a Welsh Waterways Festival held on Neath Canal, new entrance features at Amman Valley Trotting Club, environmental improvements along Neath Canal, new brown signage in the Vale of Neath and the installation of a new Afan Valley Connect 2 cycleway. For further detail on all of the Neath Port Talbot projects, please visit the Valleys Regional Park website (external site).

Led by Welsh Government, Valleys Regional Park created a partnership with a range of local authorities including Neath Port Talbot, Blaenau Gwent, Bridgend, Caerphilly, Carmarthenshire, Swansea, Merthyr Tydfil, Rhondda Cynon Taf and Torfaen, together with Sustrans, Countryside Council for Wales, Environment Agency Wales, Forestry Commission Wales and Groundwork Wales

Source

On another note, but still on a Welsh theme, this made me facepalm this morning:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/25/view-wales-town-showered-eu-cash-votes-leave-ebbw-vale

They are built now though so just running costs to find. Like any facility they will have to work out their overheads and charge the appropriate entrance fee to users to cover those overheads if there are no grants available. If it’s a great place to ride then it will be well supported. I have never been to BPW but ride Dalby and llandgegla which I assume are the same type of facility.

wallop – Member

Isn’t Afan funded by EDF or another energy company? My understanding is that they’ve put aside £300k for ongoing maintenance and I thought they funded the initial construction too.

Afan received a load of funding to compensate for the damage caused by the windfarm (construction of Blade to replace Skyline, basically). Also there’s a dividend from the windfarm though that’s for “the local community” I think rather than specifically for the trails.

We already answered these questions, its our money and we get back £10bn less than we pay in

And all that money will go into good causes back home, yes?

In related news, the Cornish turkeys are now demanding that someone else provides Christmas dinner.

(this metaphor doesn’t completely work. I just don’t care)

I did some work for a manufacturing business in a well known grim South Wales town. They were one of the few ones left, blue and yellow signs everywhere and they basically given a new empty factory building on a new business park for free. It was huge not just some little industrial unit. All built and paid for by the EU and given to them by the Welsh assembly on an indefinite lease.

Not saying that’s the wrong or right way to help keep jobs in a depressed area but I’m surprised that area voted out.

And all that money will go into good causes back home, yes?

Interest on the bonds now the UK isn’t AAA

Not saying that’s the wrong or right way to help keep jobs in a depressed area but I’m surprised that area voted out.

Have you read the stuff posted/shouted the short sighted stuff is a mess

The thing is that all of these funding mechanisms take a long time to go through and a lot of effort and expertise to apply for and receive them. Even if the (what’s left of the U.K.) government apportion money for things like mtb trails it could take years before any money comes through. Any projects awaiting EU funding likely to be on hold. So a minimum delay of 2 years. Then give government time to organise the departments and allocate budgets and even more time to receive applications, consider and process them. Assuming tax income doesn’t go down in that time to reduce the available budget. Just for the record I voted remain.

Then give government time to organise the departments and allocate budgets and even more time to receive applications, consider and process them. Assuming tax income doesn’t go down in that time to reduce the available budget.

yep at no point will income or revenue take a hit (see point about dropping the AAA rating)

In general funding in Wales, Scotland, Cornwall and others is regional development funding for redevelopment following collapse of industry such as mining. These areas have had a massive benefit from much of this with regeneration.

Yes, on exit we have the same money to spend and can in theory better allocate it.

However I have absolutely zero confidence in the government spending it on projects like this. The money will all go in filling budget holes and not on anything like this. With the EU, portions of money is ring fenced for development projects so the money that goes back to the UK cannot be pissed up the wall.

And remember looking at Wales alone, they net profit from the EU. If they were to quit the UK but stay in the EU, they would get more than they put in. Which makes it all the more crazy they voted out.

Staff at Antur Sriniog on Thursday told us they were voting leave, despite the centre existing because of European funding. Their main motivation for wanting to leave was around immigration. In Blaneau Ffestioniog. I was lost for words.

@wallop (and @darkside) if it made you facepalm then it shows you don’t understand these people’s situation and their logic. They will have a rational line of thought for their decision.

Does anyone know if this chap actually rides a mountain bike ? He does come over rather roadie

Chapeau to you Sir @flap. To answer your question not nearly enough recently. Last Tuesday up on SDW outside Winchester, views South to IOW in distance. Apologies for the sloppy language.

What is their rational line of thought?

Edit – this is a genuine question. They have very low numbers of immigrants, and those who are there are working. Yet, they voted “to get the immigrants out”.

If you want to know the answer look at lee quarry.

http://gov.wales/funding/eu-funds/?lang=en

http://gov.wales/funding/eu-funds/2014-2020/?lang=en
lots of info here.

Apologies, jambo.

Glad to see you got out. It’s many a long year since I rode the SDW, but we’re entertaining the idea of a visit later this year.

Plan is
Day 1 Winchester to Brighton
Day 2 Brighton to London.

If we meet let’s not talk politics !

Perhaps AA Gill was right to some degree and i’m ashamed of my countrymen.

“loquacious, dissemblers, immoral liars, stunted, bigoted, dark, ugly, pugnacious little trolls”

Staff at Antur Sriniog on Thursday told us they were voting leave, despite the centre existing because of European funding. Their main motivation for wanting to leave was around immigration. In Blaneau Ffestioniog. I was lost for words

Were the staff local welsh ? Need i say more !

Anyone not from that area of Wales is considered an immigrant or seisneg .

Hi Dark Side and Mountainman,

As an employee of Antur ‘Stiniog I would just like to point out that the personal opinion of our employees does not represent that of the company. The DH centre and trails were funded by European funding as were many other local projects and have been a huge benefit to the community and local economy. Although the Downhill Project was initially grant funded the centre is now fully financially sustainable and no longer relies on grant funding to run.

Cheers.

You could always volunteer on dig days

The Welsh have an organisation dedicated for dealing with EU Funds – Welsh European Funding Office; initially these were for structural projects (large projects) but a recent new round of funding has extended these to agricultural, fisheries and marine etc projects (rural development). I know as I spent 16 mths there changing the core IT system to support the new regulations.

Thanks, macnibbler, that’s the sort of info we need. I feared Wales had voted itself back to the Stone Age, hopefully not.

I’d also like to point out that Blaenau Ffestiniog is in Gwynedd, one of the five areas in Wales to vote remain.

MTB facilities got about £10m a few years ago, as above just under half was for the Cognation project in South Wales (mostly BPW but also some improvements to Afan and Cwmcarn) it didn’t all come from the EU, but the bulk of it did.

Personally I think that Brexit might mean no new trails, but I don’t think it’ll close the existing ones. BPW say they spend more on building and maintenance than they take in tickets so I guess the running costs come from somewhere but it should be self-funding, NRW maintain the other centres.

I don’t really understand why so many parts of Wales voted leave (my area voted remain although we rarely see anything these days as were in one of the wealthier areas these days) but you can’t move in Swansea for EU flags on really massive new projects, Swansea is gong through the same sort of rebirth Cardiff went through 15-20 years ago, they’ve even made parts of Newport look like the developed world.

And I know the UK paid more in than we got out (directly anyway) but Westminster let Wales die for years, Cardiff was a huge vibrant City in the past, largest busiest port in the world, but the demise of industry nearly killed it off – the Cardiff of my childhood was a dirty run down place – but the EU will invest here, Westminster only wants to invest in London and the South East it seems