Forestry states support for Mountain Biking

March 05

At the Public meeting which took place in Castlewellan Forest Park on Saturday 5 th of March, the forestry service stated that they where not Anti Mountain Biking. In light of recent CAAN press releases the Forestry Service have been blamed for holding up or losing funding which was offered for the development of Mountain Bike trails in Rostrevor and Castlewellan forest. When this was put to the forestry officials at the meeting, they claimed that where prepared to offer full support to the CAAN proposals, providing that the proposals passed an economic appraisal. The problem, say the forestry, is that when tested, the CAAN proposals do not pass these economic appraisals.

The forestry say the CAAN proposals are based on Dafyd Davis (Coed y brenin) outline proposals and did not take into account the vastly smaller population of Northern Ireland along with the physical size of the forests which are up to 10 times smaller than Coed y brenin. The forestry official seemed to suggest that a more realistic proposal could be made which begs the question, are CAAN aiming too high?

The forestry officials told the mountain biking representatives that they had written to CAAN in January of this year and offered to meet CAAN, and even help CAAN change their proposals so that agreements could be met. As of yet, the forestry say they have had no reply.

Mountain Bikers attending the meeting discussed their disappointment that there was no representative from CAAN at the meeting. This left riders, who had traveled to the meeting specifically to show their anger at the lack of forestry support, without a leg to stand on when the forestry pinned the blame on the CAAN proposals, and CAAN’s failure to move towards a middle ground. Had a CAAN representative attended the meeting we perhaps would have heard a more balanced argument. Apparently at this stage CAAN do not intend to send a representative to the next forestry meeting in Belvoir Forest.

The forestry official said they they were happy and willing to work with the riders at a local level, to build and develop trails in forests such as Rostrevor and Castlewellan and mentioned 'Project Belvoir' as an example of how this can work. This is a far cry from the Anti-Mountain Bike reputation that the forestry has.

So where does that leave us? CAAN say the forestry are to blame in that they will not support the proposals. The forestry says that the CAAN proposals as they stand do not pass the economic appraisal but in theory, the CAAN proposals could be negotiated so they become more feasible.

The meeting had representatives from the Horse Riding community, Caravan Clubs, Local Councils, Local businesses and general forest users, but Mountain Bikers made up the majority of the attendance. None of the groups had anything bad to say about mountain bike riding in the forest parks. Surely this is a great compliment as to how mountain bikers have been conducting themselves over the past few years and shows much of the stigma surrounding mountain biking has gone. Keep up the good work!

The IrishDH petition was presented to the forestry official at the meeting and was received with thanks. We will be closing the petition thread on the forum and IrishDH would like to thank everyone who made the effort to post their support.

The way forward?

The forestry seems prepared to work with Mountain Bikers on a local level and it was suggested that they would be happy to work with a committee of mountain bikers to develop trails. IrishDH will be sending a copy of this report to CAAN and hope to post their response shortly. In the meantime, don’t loose hope. Investment in mountain bike trails isn’t going to happen overnight, but ground is being made slowly………..