I’m organising a trailquest in and around the Wyre Forest in December.
I’ve been negotiating with the Forestry Commission to use some of the hard tracks which are not public rights of way.
I’ve just been informed there will be a £50 administration fee for their cooperation, so I am now going to alter the position of a couple of control points to keep them entirely on bridleways.

Sustrans Route 45 runs through the forest and I wanted to use it as a route on the event.
It’s not a public right of way, presumably it is a permissive right of way for cycles, I don’t know the exact legal status.

The forestry Commission have no say over what we do on a bridleway through the forest, any more than a farmer does on a bridleway across their land.
What about a permissive route though ?
Anyone can ride along a Sustrans route, but can I organise an event using one without the land owners permission ?

I’m not trying to get in to a legal argument with them.
I’ve been asked to stay out of one area and I will alter the control point position to suit their request, even though there’s a bridleway through there.
I would prefer to stay on good terms with them, I just want to know the legal situation before I discuss altering the route.

What’s the position now with holding a timed event on bridleways? IIRC it always used to be a no no.

Racing is not allowed, a time trial is, iirc?

Certainly all the wiggle events are timed and run on bridleways

Certainly racing is not allowed on a bridleway.

Hit the North uses bridleways/some of Sustrans route 6.
as a result ‘it’s not a race’

..if you know what I mean

From a legal point of view, a trailquest is a navigation event, not a timed event.
There is a time limit and there are penalties for returning late, but it is not a “timed event”.
If two riders get the same total score, the one with the fewest penalties wins.
If it’s still a draw, the one who visited the fewest control points wins.
If it’s still a draw, the one who left earliest wins.
If it’s still a draw, then it’s a draw, there’s no advantage to finishing in a shorter time.

Ask the local Sustrans or ROW officer

It’s part of the Mercian Way so it must have some kind of row agreement in place.

Just to clarify the slight sidetrack, Trailquests are not construed as races as they do not rank the competitors in terms of speed, there is a fixed time allowed and competitors are ranked in order of the value of the checkpoints visited in that time. Re the FC, it’s a bit rough charging you for just going through their(our) land, I organised TQ’s in Mid Wales for 8 years and was never charged other than for use of visior centres. The issue might be if they decide to get arsey, how can you control how the riders get to the checkpoints on bridleways, if there is a muddy overgrown BW or a slightly longer forest road then riders will choose the latter, unless you put them out of bounds then you need to police this. The Sustrans issue is complex, irrespective of whether there is a ROW, I would always consult the landowner if crossing their land, who knows, a farmer may choose that day to dip sheep along side the trail and dozens of riders using usually deserted trails may cause issues. Welcome to the world of event organisation.

Ask the local Sustrans or ROW officer

That’ll be me then. 😉
Not really, I’m just a Sustrans Ranger, I’ve got no authority.
I don’t know who within Sustrans would deal with this and I guess that they would simply say no to avoid any complications anyway.

The FC can’t prevent us using bridleways any more than they can prevent us using the B4194 or A456.
Having granted permissive use of Route 45 though, can they then remove that permission for a specific event ?

The only definative answer would be to obtain a copy of the agreement between the FC and sustrans for that route, and look through the clauses.

The Wyre forest is roughly half and half Forestry Commission and Natural England.

I just phoned Natural England.

“Did you get my map I posted last week, are we OK to use those routes ?”
“Yes, no problem”
“Do I need that in writing ?”
“OK, I’ll email it to you”

Wasn’t that easy. 😀