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Just come in from Forestry England, all forests are closed from tonight onwards.
Oh 🙁 Scotland to follow? Self isolation and getting out on my bike was/is something I could expect to do and keep sanity going forward while being sensible about it.
FC website says From tonight we will close all recreation facilities in the woods and forests we manage.
So assume that means cafes, toilets, shops etc.?
No idea about mtb trails, but conceivably these too. Shame as I bought a year pass recently and was planning to take the dog for a run round the quiet parts of Dalby and possibly take the kids a walk (don't fancy solo mtb tbh)
Where, link pls ?
Has to happen, sadly.
To be fair the FC have posted too many people are congrgating at sherwood pines visitor centre and if continued they would have to close.
I think that does mean the facilities rather than the entire forest, no?
no? yes? WTF!
It means the facilities.
Not the actual forests.
Might be worth editing thread title for avoidance of misunderstanding.
True, the announcement specifically says that forests will remain open as long as possible. But the thread title might persuade some people not to travel to FC land for group activities… which is something we need to happen to avoid blanket forest closures, so leave it as it is.
Probably includes car parks though (Gisburn have said it does).
So I guess it's local forests for local people now.
At this point I’m not sure, I took it as the whole forests from our instructions.
I’ll ask them
I'd have thought it pretty tricky to close an entire forest. But closing the facilities will make it unattractive to the majority so it's definitely a good move.
Yeah I got the same email about the forest of dean, I took it to mean the facilities and car parks. Would be impossible to close the actual forests.
They don’t physically close them obviously, but they usually say no public access, typically in the past when the wind forecast has been 50mph+
And people ignore those closures, just like they'll ignore these closures.
At this point I’m not sure, I took it as the whole forests from our instructions.
I’ll ask them
The forests are open, facilities are closed.
Taken from here
https://www.forestryengland.uk
How hard was that 😂
Same as in Wales. Natural Resources Wales facilities (cafes and visitor centres) are closed, but the trails and forests are open. Bike shops in the forest such as Beics Brenin at Coed y Brenin are also still open, for the moment at least.
How do you shut the Forest of Dean? you can close facilities but you can't close the towns within the forest.
Anglia Water has closed all its recreation areas including Rutland Water.
Closing the car parks seems sensible. Most people only go a short distance from their car. There is usually parking on the road somewhere so hopefully it'll spread people out a bit.
Seems sensible. Mad to keep visitor facilities open. But it does also say:
You can also go for a walk or exercise outdoors if you stay more than 2 metres from others.
Yep local forests for local people. The thread title needs changed, it's misleading (until and if the government changes the guidance).
To be fair on 'the public' we were told that we should go for walks in parks & forrests , national trust even opened for free
And just 2 weeks ago government defended decision to keep football matches on , saying that it was fine because outside COVID couldn't spread easily
We've been told to self isolate your family for 14 days if 1 of you gets ill, so people rush out & panic buy 14 days worth of food , which other people see & then panic buy themselves .
Dumping new phrases on the public like 'social distancing' 'herd immunity' & 'flattening the curve' may make Dom Cummings feel smart & superior in meetings but it's just gibberish to most of us.
This is a failure of government to communicate clearly, the smart people not nearly as smart as they think they are
I agree with you Kimbers, and I'd also say it's teething problems in a massive behaviour change programme that has actually worked remarkably well in general.
As I said on another thread, tell people who aren't normally "outdoorsy" to go outdoors and they're likely to all end up at the same places. Give the NT a load of publicity and everyone will go to their properties. They are not being stupid, just a bit naive.
I'd like to see policy formed from proper evidence rather than off the back of a few photos circulated by anxious social media users.
From what the BMC are saying, mountain rescue is essentially closed for the foreseeable now.
While the forest/etc can’t actually be practically closed, the lack of emergency services to come and remove people who have crashed is likely to do the job in most cases, I’d expect. Or at the very least cause people to be much more careful than usual.
People are still walking and cycling in the Forest Of Dean but all car parks are shut plus the green barriers are down everywhere you could still park in the overflow car park at Pedalway but not Beechinghurst getting drier down there.
Strictly Yorkshire Water have closed all their car parks but Barnsley Trout club are still hammering Scoutdike with no sign of CP closure.
It’s all a bit surreal really. If we do get the anticipated lockdown speech at 2030 it’s going to be because everyone thinks they know what’s safe and that they can carry on, it’s just everyone else...
FC are slight different to Forestry England though?
FC covers forests in general including those that aren't technically open to the public or restrict access. Forestry England seem be more the public facing public facing forests with investment in public access, facilities, trails etc
I think?
And from Forestry and Land Scotland. https://forestryandland.gov.scot/covid-19
All visitor facilities are closed, including car parks.
They say you can still walk or cycle in your local forests. But do not travel there by motor vehicle.
And from Forestry and Land Scotland. https://forestryandland.gov.scot/covid-19
/a>All visitor facilities are closed, including car parks.
All the car parks around Glenmore are open and a couple had cars in when I passed earlier today (Wednesday). I'm not even sure they have a gate or barrier of any kind so it might take some organising to physically close them off.
NRW (FC in Wales) have closed all theirs too. Carparks, Cafe's and now officially the actual trails too.
The thing is, if you wanted to you could probably easily find somewhere to park outside, ride in and take a loop if you wanted to, things that are stopping you:
"Avoid unnecessary travel". So unless you can ride to one, you might expect the Police to stop you and ask why you're driving about with a bike on your Car unless you have a Van I suppose. You also risk transporting the virus (if you have it, but have no symptoms) to a part the of country where it isn't.
"no socialising with anyone from outside your house" Once you're in an riding, unless you can take someone from your house you're riding solo, in a closed park - so if you go down, you're on your own, even if you're not so injured that you can reach your phone "Hello, is that the Ambulance service? Yeah you'll laugh at this, I know you're dealing with the greatest crisis since your founding 50 years ago, but I've trespassed into Mountain Bike centre and hurt myself, please arrange for an ambo to get me, oh and you'll need to work out how to get in, because all the entrances are locked"
It's a flagrant breach of Rule #1 to me. I'm staying local and doing piss easy stuff away from everyone.
It’s a flagrant breach of Rule #1 to me. I’m staying local and doing piss easy stuff away from everyone.
This, I don't necessarily think it's a breach of rule 1 if you live locally and ride them at a time when you're not likely to encounter anyone, but I'm not sure such times really exist on most trail centres, even from purely local traffic.
I've been riding local and trying to time it and choose my trails to minimise my chances of meeting anyone. Kind of the opposite of my normal solo "ride when/where people will find my mangled corpse quickly" approach.
“Hello, is that the Ambulance service? Yeah you’ll laugh at this, I know you’re dealing with the greatest crisis since your founding 50 years ago, but I’ve trespassed into Mountain Bike centre and hurt myself, please arrange for an ambo to get me, oh and you’ll need to work out how to get in, because all the entrances are locked”
As per so many other things though, you are at risk from many other things, and you can't make that zero no matter how you ride (or behave in the rest of your life). The wellbeing I get from being out on my bike justifies the risk - which of course I've dialled right back for now, but it can never be zero, and we all know it's the easy trails you end up crashing on (and that roads aren't 100% risk free either).
So no, I don't want to find myself dialling the ambulance, I have done a couple of rides with my gf, I neither want to be stretching the NHS nor finding myself in a coronavirus riddled hospital (I'm thankful to all the NHS workers who are dealing with this every day). But I can't pretend I'm at zero risk of doing that whether I ride or not.
Just saw a post on FB for the local Forestry England account by the Ranger.
The forest IS NOT closed, but you cant drive there and have been asked not to drive nearby and park down the road instead.
"...however the woods are still open for you to access"
"its just that everyone will have to walk or ride to get there"
I nearly cut my thumb quite badly chopping an unexpectedly slippery onion yesterday.
Not nice waiting to see if the blood welled out or not after pulling the blade away, but luckily I got away with it.
Perhaps I should just eat ready meals, but I find cooking from scratch quite therapeutic?
ChannelD
Scotland to follow
That would conflict with our access rights.
We have the right to responsible access. The question is whether it's responsible.
On a related note. I got an email from FC saying my Dalby annual pass would be automatically extended by the duration the forest is shut. So at least people won't be out of pocket and will be able to continue enjoying the forest when this is all over. Assume similar applies to others with annual passes
Edit: hopefully this will satisfy the "I've paid for it so I'm using it no matter what brigade"
I had a email saying that about my Forest Of Dean one.This is a hard one so they say you can go out and do your daily exercise yet if you go locally from house say walking there is so many people around its crazy yet if you drive 10 miles from home to get away from people in the middle of no where you could be fined my parents do that each afternoon and they are in there eighties you cant win.
Local forests, for local people.
Can I ride from Edinburgh to Peebles over Pentlands/Drove roads then do some of the Glentress trackz?