[Closed] Chapel Gate - consultation on proposed "repairs"

There are two Jacobs ladders then - did not know that. Imagine some heads will fall off at first glance seeing that title...

The Chapel Gate consultation is something we've been looking quite closely at already, being a key project for Peak District MTB for a few years. We'll be making our recommendations as Peak District MTB in due course.

- Do you think the new proposals are good/bad/indifferent?

- What can be done better?

- Do you think the reasons for doing it are valid? etc

We'll be providing our view of this consultation soon...

Dan

Peak District MTB

Dan - I've forwarded my response on to Esther of PDMTB so it should get circulated round if its of interest.  Basically the use of unsuitable materials is inappropriate, and the design appears half-baked.

Cheers,

Keith

Awesome thanks Keith. I *nearly* put Esther's email address in this thread, but thought I'd better ask her first 🙂

{EDIT} - I spoke to Esther last night so maybe I've already heard your response. Thanks

Having just read your response to the Nov 2016 consultation, about the use of granular material as surfacing, they appear to have not learned from previous consultaitons...  You could maybe bring this in to your official response?

We had a very similar discussion at our commitee meeting last night Keith

Chris

KoftheP / PDMTB

KoftheP 2016 response. (2016!!!)

https://kofthep.com/2016/11/15/rushup-consultation-kofthep-response/

As an aside, the extension of this track - the one that most of us think of as 'Chapel Gate' - is an object lesson in failing track repair. For context, it went from a deteriorating tarmac track with raised ribbons of asphalt to something resembling an alpine rock garden thanks to water erosion and damage from 4x4s.

A few years back it was extensively resurfaced with hardcore and neck-breaking cross-track drainage ditches were added. It turned into a very civilised, hard-surfaced, if steep, climb on pretty much any bike.

I rode up it, or up some of it, the other day on a cross bike and you can tell it's not on the brink of deteriorating again. There's loads of washout, the odd bedrock step is starting to appear, the hardcore surface is deteriorating to areas of washed-out rubble. Give it a couple of winters and in some sections,  it'll be somewhere back close to where it started, I reckon because it takes lots of drainage. I mention all this because it demonstrates very clearly the futility of this sort of hardpack repair even with the benefit of huge drainage ditches.

Ironically, before DCC royally screwed it up, the Rushup Edge trough coped incredibly well with both traffic and natural erosion. If anything needed fixing, it was the boggy section at the top, which I see they are at last proposing to repair.

Personally I think the whole thing is a colossal waste of time and money. The track was fine before and in keeping with its surroundings, Looking at the plans, they seems like a wholesale pitching and unsustainable resurfacing of large parts of the track with small areas of existing bedrock being preserved as sort of token gesture. Should be good on a cross bike though :-/

There are two Jacobs ladders then

There are quite a few dotted around the country.

Not sure it's clear from the above but you can respond to to consultations by going to lomks above and scrolling down to questionaire link

For chapel it's

https://www.snapsurveys.com/wh/s.asp?k=152544884086

Q1)  pleade tell us how the scheme, if implemented, may affect your use and/or enjoyment of the route.

Q2) Do you support the scheme (Y/N)

Q3) please can you tell us why you feel the way you do.

Q4) Do you think the scheme could be improved (Y/N)

BWD has got it spot on and most of what he notes was in my response to the above.

Just to note, the Dcc website states that they are carrying out the consultation via the website survey. So if you email a response it is quite possible 0gat they could ignore/lose the response as it's not come in on the official channel.

To be honest if I were the consultant I'd have been embarrassed to design something so obviously flawed, and if I were the council I'd be embarrassed to have employed such a poor consultant, and ashamed of myself for sending it out for consultation!

The consultant was probably a councillors cousin.

But seriously the poor quality is indicative of how the council see their RoW responsibilities.

Nah, it's AECOM. They will have given scheme like this to their newest graduate, given them minimal guidance other than a highways manual and let them get on with it.  The council wgjjpgapd some blameaw not setting 0if parameters for the design adequately the brief.  Even the proposed budget for the job ma have lost along the way between client and designer.  We've had to introduce a hold point with our consultants one week after issuing a brief to ensure they understand our requirements and budgets/resources.

Chapel Gate is turning back into a jumbled pile of rocky rubbly gravel.

I think it needs a load of that porous concrete putting in and then seeding with hardwearing grass and then left well alone for a year or two. Stuff like this, it works well for slope protection:

https://www.grasscrete.com/docs/paving/grassblock.html

They seem not to learn with their rock & gravel surfacing - within 2 years it all ends up washed down to the bottom, huge runnels and ruts develop and then water sits in the dips so you get huge puddles that rarely dry up.