The next steering group meeting with the land managers has been arranged for a couple of week's time. There will be representatives from Ashton Court Estate, Forest of Avon and the Forestry Commission, which covers all of the Timberland Trail and a lot of the other trails round here. If you've got any comments or queries that you want us to put to them, say them here!
We had an open meeting last month and will be putting forward some of the suggestions and comments that were made at this - see here for more details:
http://bmbc.4.forumer.com/index.php?showtopic=237
Here's a brief summary of what we discussed last night:
- Ashton Court don't have a student ranger at the moment, but digs there are going to continue, and their head ranger is very keen to keep the trails in good shape. Keep watching this space, and hopefully digging there will re-start some time next month. They are also going to install a notice board at the head of the trail, to keep people informed about issues with the trail, events etc.
- Leigh Woods - The Forestry Commission are very enthusiastic about getting an official mountain bike route going over there. As yet we don't know what form it will take, but adopting and marking the well-used route across the top of the wood (the "Ho Chi Minh" trail) is a possibility. There will need to be further meetings, site visits etc before anything definite is decided.
- The FC are also prepared to consider other locations for trails, although Leigh Woods is a priority given the amount of use it sees.
- We asked them about putting in more trails in 50 Acre Wood. It seems that now would not be the best time to do this, as some of the logging tracks in the middle of the wood are probably going to be upgraded for use by horses, and if we start putting in more trails through the middle of the wood before this is finished it might create confusion or user conflict.
I think that's more or less everything we discussed, but there will probably be some more detailed minutes of the meeting to follow, and I'll put these up on the site when they arrive.
If you have any comments or questions, feel free to post them below.