I’ll do that in a bit.

Have a look at DCC on Facebook. There is barely a single thread on there that hasn’t got a comment about this on it.

Keep chiseling away at the facade, people. Keep it clean, keep it succinct, but most of all keep it all over there, all the time. I wish I was more web-literate sometimes. #thestrawthatbrokethecamelsback#

Once the top dressings on and compacted thats going to take a long time to return to the natural bedrock, if ever. Looks like a buttery front wheel accident waiting to happen as it is now…

They consider “outdoor recreation” to be a sort of Centre Parcs style affair where British Family Robinson turn up in their X5, pay £5 to park, hire 4 “mountain bikes” and potter off for a 5 mile bimble round the lake on wide gravelled waymarked routes then come back and spend lots of money at the overpriced car park café before driving off home again.

That’s spot on. This is the kind of thing they like. A ‘project’. Oh yes! Hang on, no. A VISION.

Possibly with card payment turnstiles when you go from one ‘leisure zone’ to the next.

Idiots.

I had a quick count – there were at least 60 Facebook posts, not sure how to count the tweets – someone will be busy on Monday

As for FOI, you need follow this link

http://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/global/publication_scheme/default.asp

that just looks like the FC’s vision of Delamere Forest

I’ve been doing some google searches on “rushup edge” + “forum” “ramblers” “surface” etc etc and using the google date filters for “this week” “this month” etc to see if any other usergroups are talking about this,

so far i’ve found

http://www.lichfieldanddistrictramblers.org.uk/

who have a campaign on there main page

“Campaign: Save Chapelgate Lane

Help save Chapelgate on Rushup Edge between Edale and Chapel-En-Le Frith from damage by 4x4s by clicking this link.”

which links to

http://e-activist.com/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=117&ea.campaign.id=21274

4x4s are already banned from chapel gate and roych clough.

OK, not sure if this went to the right place but it was the only contact I could find. No idea what the hell I am actually talking about but am as pissed off with all this as people who actually use the route. Hope it makes someone think.

this is what I sent to DCC
“Hi, it has been brought to my attention that an area of natural beauty has recently been destroyed. Nature has, after years of general awesomeness, created a landscape that was as interesting to walk, run, and ride as it was to just simply look at. I have now seen pictures of materials being dumped over this natural landscape hiding it’s beauty from site. Gone are those beautifully sculpted stones, smoothed over years of natural erosion and footfall, never again will an artist, photographer or even a visitors minds eye be able to record or recall this natural beauty.

Anyway, that’s the whimsical prose out of the way and so to my point, I would like to know the financial ins and outs relating to the work carried out at Rushup Edge, how much did it cost, how did you decide to spend the money here rather than on the many dangerous potholes in the roads, how many teachers could you have funded with the money you have spent on destroying gods countryside.

That’s all.

Enjoy your week

John”

I may have had a couple of glasses of wine

😉 They respond asking for clarification on what exact figures you would like.

OK, so what figures do I want? I have no idea, I am now on my third glass

This is the most used walking forums I can find, anyone fancy signing up to see what the walkers think about the desecration, I can’t find any walking forums, anywhere, even discussing it. Are the masses even aware?

http://www.forum.walkersforum.com/viewforum.php?f=35

http://www.walkingforum.co.uk/index.php?PHPSESSID=6e7e6d80f5f2d58abc1593c5238ce5c1&board=13.0

interesting reading

Chapel gate and roych are mentioned around page 10.
Looks to me like peak horsepower are quite influential.

^ sure I remember reading somewhere last year that a senior councillor at DCC was heavily involved with Peakpower*

* I may have this wrong! it may have been another organisation so please don’t quote me but if anyone else can remember and find the link?

They are indeed, as is the BHS to which they belong.

and peakMTB have done what? We need a national organisation to sort out issues like this. I have not had a drink and I am absolutely f**king livid! Horse riders and ramblers get looked after and we keep getting shafted, facebook posts and a picnic are just not cutting it with me, we should be obstructing the workers on Monday from finishing this desecration.

aracer – Member
One slightly outside the box thing to do is to make them use up their repair budget so they have no money for this. How to do that? Report lots and lots of potholes in real roads.

I’ve just reported 5,000 potholes on the Mam Tor old road
Makes it sound worse than Blackburn

Could be a laugh though, just send them a picture and grid reference 😈

johnj2000 – Member
it has been brought to my attention that an area of natural beauty has recently been destroyed. Nature has, after years of general awesomeness, created a landscape that was as interesting to walk, run, and ride as it was to just simply look at.

That’s the nub of it.

Ultimately we shouldn’t be aggrieved as cyclists we should be upset as tax payers.
There’s not a person alive who would put these works ahead of hospital repairs.
When I put this to the council their excuse was that it comes from a different pot and needs spending. This from the same council who had their car park resurfaced and bottle bank bins repainted in march so they used up their allowances for the year. The whole thing stinks.
These people are pissing our money up the wall.

Amen MrOvershoot! Now on the Port

Very good 🙂 Unfortunately I think that’s been declassified so they’re not obliged to fix those.

Regarding the destruction of an area of natural beauty, I’ve had a google, but not really an expert on this sort of thing – does anybody know if there are any laws which DCC might be breaking regarding this? Probably not something they’re going to have missed, but it has to be worth a look.

and peakMTB have done what?

That’s extremely unfair. PeakMTB have limited clout.

We need a national organisation to sort out issues like this.

Which is what I said earlier. That needs officers, a structure, FUNDING. Organisations like the BMC and Ramblers didn’t pop up overnight and we are starting from zero.

Steady folks. Don’t start turning on each other. That will play right into the hands of the swine. Remember this is not just about us, they are **** up a nice piece of countryside for no reason other than their view of the world versus ours. And by ‘ours’ I mean all who can enjoy the countryside without having a bark chip path to walk along in our crocs.

DCC are the enemy.

fasternotfatter – Member
and peakMTB have done what?

That is a very valid question and one I am happy to try and answer. It formed at the end of 2013 after coming into existence at the request of a PDNPA member to provide local input from MTBers into a proposed cycle route down the Hope Valley.

It took 3 months to find our feet and identify the people we needed to engage with, as we had widened our remit after Chapel Gate was ‘sanitised’. We had a long meeting with DCC in March and we genuinely believed we had opened the door to working with them. We were promised copies of repair schedules, input into what was being done and that we would be consulted. DCC even agreed to speak at a meeting of a MTBers if we organised it. Over the summer they stopped responding,

We tried to work through PDNPA but it became clear that although they talk a good game, they have no power at all because they abdicated highways responsibility to DCC.

So at the end of the summer we had identified who the protagonists were, including other organisations – Ride Sheffield, Peak Horsepower, NFU, PDNPA and DCC. We had done a number of dig days to repair drainage on trails and formed a good relationship with the ranger in that area. We have identified some options to link up bridleways to create some nice long loops and then this happened. So we have thrown lots of time energy and effort into helping raise awareness of this, promoting the protest, contacting the media and supporting Esther get the picnic protest rolling.

This has been done with a small committee of 6 people which dropped to 4 during the summer. Each of these people has a full time job and squeezes this into balancing work, family and MTB. PDMTB has no funds at all, everything is voluntary.

Other than that we’ve just wasted time and drunk tea.

Hope that helps. 😀

http://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/council/news_events/news-updates/2014/october/older_people_to_work_with_us_on_budget_cut_solutions.asp

Don’t spend £70,000 on sanitising bridleways?

I’ve just made a FOI request to DCC asking how many people use public rights of way in the PDNP and how many of these have been injured, made a claim or been successful in making claim.

Hopefully, this will show that risk/benefits of sanitising trials is not worth it from the point of view of protecting DCC from a claim.

Oh sod it. Let’s just head up there, pick the rocks up and lob over the fence! Seriously, if we get enough people up there in one go we can have that lot stripped in a few hours.

I’m not trolling here and have made this observation before but DCC and PDNP appease the organizations that have no clout or say, they allude to give some small wins nothing More

A lot of us have been biking in greno and the peak for 20 years and even when I ran a shop in Sheffield and there were shop rides there was never a need to needle the council.

In three years they have shown limited interest and paid lip service to mtbers as a group

rogerthecat

Keep at it. These relationships and trust take time to build. Timescales on projects like this are always longer than you think and the council/park/etc officers won’t bother with ‘fly by night’ organisations that appear and disappear overnight.

Who is Lord Podgington III on the Peak MTB FB page? There’s an ongoing discussion, which I genuinely think is pretty restrained considering the issue, and he’s describing us as “abusive”. We have no hope 🙁

It’s podge I presumed

I don’t know who podge is either but I’ve replied to him, but I feel very pessimistic about the future of MTB in the Peak District 🙁

He appears to be acting as Devils advocate.
It’s helpful to see how the other side might view us maybe?

This is a good example of how the “other side” view us:
“This particular bridleway has been transformed from a quiet forgotten way twenty years ago to a highway used by large numbers of mountain bikers (using the route legally) racing and attempting to hit speeds of 20mph plus on the long gradual downhill gradient with little regard for the safety of pedestrians who do not hear them coming.”
“Not a safe place on a Sunday if you are a walker with hearing problems.”

I shall now look forward to riding it at 20mph – instead of my current 2mph 🙄

Esme where is the route?

Anyone know the details of the mountain biker incident on Stanage? Was it the long causeway?

EMRT incident 90 on 25 Oct 2014.

Would be interested to know if it was in any way related to the resurfacing work carried out by DCC.

Pessimistic how so….just ride your bike where and how you want, you cant stop every biker doing that

And yes it’s Podge, just being the awkward squad but it does help clarify our position. Occasionally he does make an interesting point, wrong, but interesting. 😀

As someone who also enjoys walking in the Peak District, I can appreciate that there are hundreds of footpaths for walkers, and if I choose to walk on a Bridleway or BOAT, I have to be prepared to share it with other legitimate users. Why do some people have trouble understanding that?

Roger, it’s Rushup Edge. Just scroll down the page and you’ll see the location on an OS map.
Loads of photos on the Geograph website, divided into gridsquares. Very useful when planning rides (and walks).

Um, sometimes actions do speak louder than words. Perhaps Mattrgee has a point!