Anger ramped up as new bike obstacles pop up in the woods
WORK TO START ON DEMOLISHING ORIGINAL 7FT RAMPS
AS Ashbourne Town Council starts to count the costs of levelling a series of hand-made mountain-biking ramps in Bradley Wood, it has been revealed another set of obstacles and tracks has been discovered in the publiclyowned beauty spot.
A clearly exasperated Councillor Anthony Bates told fellow members at last week’s full council meeting that he had stumbled upon another set of trails and obstacles over the weekend before the meeting, during a routine walk around the wood.
The council has voted to bring in heavy machinery to demolish a track that had been made without permission at the top of a bank on the southern extremity of the wood, to discourage cyclists and motorcyclists from using the area for recreation.
The original trail now features ramps as high as 7ft, which have been built on a site that has been used by cyclists for generations.
But councillors have said “enough is enough” and they are now looking into ways to prevent cyclists and motorcyclists from accessing the wood, including specialist fencing and gateways.
And at last Tuesday’s meeting, Councillor Bates voiced his frustration at finding another trail to the east of the woodland, which also appears to be well established and well used.
He said: “I went to Bradley Wood last weekend to follow up on the fencing and the gates. We’ve now got the situation on the left hand side, in the fir area, that now we’ve got ramps and race tracks in that side as well.
“So it’s not just on the left-hand side, we’ve also got it on the right hand side as well.”
Councillor Denise Brown immediately responded: “So all that hard work we did planting shrubs and bushes and stuff was a waste of time because they’ll have just destroyed them.”
The News Telegraph went to inspect the site highlighted by Councillor Bates and found a well-established circuit, with small ramps constructed from dirt and logs with well-ridden trails linking them together.
The site occupies a wide area of woodland made up of a mixture of conifers and native deciduous trees, with a small amount of litter dotted about alongside the trails.
We did not see any evidence of trees or shrubs being cut down, and the circuit was away from the wood’s main paths.
Last year an Ashbourne man approached the town council to discuss the possibility of setting up a trail association, working with the town council and ecologists to demolish the existing trails, and to replace them with an official, managed trail away from the public areas. But his invitation was turned down.
Updating members on the process of sourcing groundworkers and machinery to demolish the trails set up without permission, town clerk Carole Dean told members a number of companies had been contacted about flattening the land and installing fencing, and it was hoped contractors would be able to meet councillors in the wood to evaluate the work involved in due course.