[Closed] Hampshire riders #2

I really do feel that this survey could be improved! My biggest beef is the state of the trails and the lack of maintenance. It's just not good enough to only schedule one session per year particularly when some promoted walking/cycling routes are pretty impassable.

The survey comes across as a sop and not a genuine interest in improving Hampshire for its residents.

Apologies for being grumpy. 😳

I'm curious as to how much input/influence the Local Access Forum has, there is currently an off road representative whom *I think* is fairly new.

Perhaps ninfan will see this thread, he has a lot of experience in rights of way matters.

CG, whilst I don't disagree with you, and Will continue to ride all types of paths and trails in any case, my simplistic approach of "in it, to win it" might just prevail - a tad optimistic, even for a Sunday morning!

Hmmm.. All I see there is limited viewpoints and lots of words/no action.

Bit meh from me that.

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The Hampshire LAF seems to be pretty well run, however I understand that the chair is very much a walker and does not necessarily give the time to some of the current issues over that way - I know one of the Hampshire members and they have spent a fair bit of time dealing with the MOD access issues at Longmoor, but not resolved yet and obviously the pressure is ramping up at Aldershot etc, so I think there may be a lot more on that front.

I think that my comments from a thread last week are relevant here, so will say it again:

[i]the system remains very disjointed - Local access forums and ROWIP's were supposed to work on this, in fact they had a specific remit to look for 'loop' routes for various users but my experience so far (visited several meetings of a couple of different LAF's, and have reviewed lots of ROWIP) has been unimpressive, there seems to be a lot of 'vision' and very little actual focus on deliverables.Local authorities have powers to create bridleways to fill in missing links, they never use them

Personally, I'm resigned that the best way to challenge the situation is to engage in deliberate civil disobedience (hey, it worked for Gandhi!) whilst doing what I can to try and change it (my LAF application is in at the moment, and I'm currently volunteering with CTC on a project) - however IMBA-UK got little support from the wider riding community when we set it up, and CTC have now got rid of their offroad officer. I agree that the industry should do more (trails=sales) however thats still expecting 'someone else' to solve this problem, there needs to be a seed change in political awareness and activism from the mountain biking community if things are to change, our elected representatives, on both a local and national level, constantly hear from a vocal minority who complain about being nearly run over by lycra louts on footpaths, we need to be in there with our local councillors and MP's telling them about Scottish access laws and why we want change, and showing that we want better provision and inclusion, rather than 'cycling prohibited' signs.[/i]

I think that applies here - only by shouting at the top of our voices when we get opportunities like this will we ever get heard, often these surveys are a numbers game, the more mountain bikers respond to it, the greater weight our opinion carries when its being looked at. On that basis I'd say 'spread it wide and make sure everyone you know responds'

As I said above, my opinion of LAF's so far is a lot of 'vision' and very little actual 'result' - we'll see if that can be changed, as I've just been appointed to the Surrey one 😀

Ha! Thanks for checking in. 😀

Hmmmm, not sounding promising and clearly a tick-box exercise that's running through this country like a rash.

To be fair though, HCC have done an excellent job of the cycle trail sets and just wondering whether one can give feedback such as overgrown trails/poor signage so at least they would know that people are using them.

It's a shame that the Hampshire Trails set up by Kate only got a little way off the ground. I remember the meeting we had with HCC and they were really interested in what we had to say. Two (old) wimmin riding bikes was probably amusing. 😉

Well done on getting involved in the Surrey access forum, you're of course the best person due to your extensive knowledge of ROW's legislation etc. Good luck!

I kinda agree that we need to shout, it's not an ideal way to do things. It's the usual public perception of mountain biking that we're up against.

Well i completed it and think the survey could be more specific, i dont see how they will get much meaningfull from it unless they take on board people additional comments.
Last thing i want is for them to make them more accesable by tarmacing and widening all the trails, when all i really want is for them to be maintained through summer so not overgrown and remain passable!!

don't feel shy in the 'additional comments' bit - I put that I ride on footpaths and MOD land because there is such poor provision for cycling and the bridleway network was disjointed, and that there was no harm in me riding on well surfaced existing tracks when walkers and their dogs had unrestricted open access to the same land!

I also did the survey and made sure I raised the issues with the MoD, and the idiocy of the footpath/bridleway distinction.

No idea if much will come of it, but as ninfan says, it can be a numbers game. I've suggested to TAG that they might like to do the survey too 🙂

ninfan:

As I said above, my opinion of LAF's so far is a lot of 'vision' and very little actual 'result' - we'll see if that can be changed, as I've just been appointed to the Surrey one

A question for you ... can Joe Public approach the relevant LAF member either with a question, moan or suggestion? Are they supposed to interact with the public and receive feedback?

Thank you. 😀

I have approached the south downs national park LAF directly about the longmoor situation before and just after being chucked off by landmarc. At the time they seemed very concerned and would follow it up. Maybe now is a good time to find out if there has been any movement on this.

Yak - is that anything to do with the Trail Action Group seeing as they're talking to the military re access for cyclists.

Have just looked at Hampshire LAF, there's been no minutes published for the last 2 meetings. In addition there's no info on the Committee members.

Course they can, though of course the role of the LAF is only advisory.

Theres also a right for MOP to attend meetings and on our standing rules they can address committee for up to 5 minutes by prior arrangement

meeting this week and we covered, amongst other things:

use of 'time' arrows rather than distance on towpaths and BW utilised by cycle network (eg: Woking 5 minutes) - felt that this was leading to people hammering it to 'beat' the time

problems with gaps between definitive map and list of streets - eg. some are routes that are on the LOS but without any defined/agreed right of access, others are rights of way that terminate on what residents claim to be a private or unadopted road

an 'island' of access land, ie. no legal way to access it, thought to be an anomaly and probably tolerated till review in this case, but a creation of a new right of way to access it could be considered if it was bigger/of particular value

suggestion all access land should be marked at entrance points so people know they have a right to walk there, and s193 common marked likewise for horse riders.

theres also a recently formed off road cycling/mountain biking group that I'll be attending, (largely to try and look at a strategy to minimise conflict with walkers and horseriders round peaslake/leith hill)

an ongoing discussion on MOD land issues, which looked quite positive in the medium term.

edit:

CG - PM me via labrat dot imba at Gmail dot com and I'll put you in touch with the cycling member, Sue, she's lovely and very helpful

Yak - the longmoor one is ongoing from what I've heard, I think theres likely to be a compromise there on the perimeter road in the near future.

CG - TAG aren't directly dealing with Longmoor as an issue, although its under the same byelaws

I get the impression that a lot of it may be a mix of paranoia over litigation (the rules say no cycling so we have to enforce it otherwise we're in the shit) and contractors doing what they're told without applying common sense or discretion. The view from the Surrey LAF after meeting with the MOD twice was that when the byelaw review came about it was likely to reflect the changed nature of access in the area and be more sympathetic to bikes, and in the meantime they were enforcing it because they have to - personally I can't say I'm that optimistic that this is entirely true and I would pressure anyone to keep on at them and local elected members (councillors, MP's etc) about the issue.

Thanks ninfan.
CG - I contacted them before TAG, but have since spoken to TAG about this.