[Closed] North Cardiff woods - consultations

Well it's interesting, I might go too. They're important trail areas but I can see how unrestricted trail building will end up being a problem if it isn't already.

There was unofficial trail building going on in Castell Coch when I was at uni in Cardiff in the late 90's!

Occasionally the powers that be would pop a bit of fence up or "strategically" fell a few trees in order to drive some heavy machinery over it but it never really caused any problems that I saw.

Wenault was a bit more restricted, some of that was definitely private land although generally the trail access was so good that people stayed where they were supposed to.

Not really consultations, looks very open-ended and unstructured. Them telling us or listening to us? I will go along and see.

Occasionally the powers that be would pop a bit of fence up or “strategically” fell a few trees in order to drive some heavy machinery over it but it never really caused any problems that I saw.

There's way way more trails now than there was then. It really is getting a bit silly in places.

Will take a good look at it this evening.

There’s way way more trails now than there was then. It really is getting a bit silly in places.

The explosion in trails over lockdown was immense, guaranteed to result in conflict. On some days it can now be nearly as busy with bikers doing laps of the runs as some trail centres. The main issue is that some fast trails cross footpaths and bridleways that the local horse riders use, with no gate or trail feature to slow you down. One bit even has a gap jump over a footpath that sends you at head height, that's just plain moronic trail building.

Witnessing the behaviour of some entitled ****ts who ride there,this comes as no suprise.

I think it would be good for some of us responsible mtbers to go there and represent ourselves.

I doubt that would have much effect, the place is ruled by the youth as a whole.

Plus I'm not exactly the most responsible person away from work and I'm soon to move away from the area so doubt I'd be much use.

Well Mrs g may come with me. She's responsible.

I think I'll go too. I took part in that survey they put out last year and the results didn't paint us in a great light - although Horse Riders took the brunt of it.

As others have said, there was some pretty obvious additions built in lockdown, it went from being a very subtle network of trails that looked 'natural' to most people to a bit obnoxious with jumps over walking paths and trail features that would cause the average H&S / NRW ranger to have kittens.

Had a longish chat with the NRW* bloke at the Forest Cafe "drop in session" this afternoon.

Their main concerns appear to be trail proliferation**, overly-built features and possible user conflict (the latter definitely the less important). There seemed to be an acceptance that folk would ride their bikes in the woods, it was a question of managing it. There is a plan to form a trail user group with whom NRW would liaise and which would be permitted to undertake trail "maintenance". But also a proposal to limit the number of trails, possibly drastically (eg only two on the ganol side) and not to, er, give their blessing to overly built features. In contrast, there was less concern about Coed y Gedrys (Bodger) as it isn't protected and folk don't walk there much. We didn't discuss enforcement/ how to stop people who want to do stuff just doing it.

* I don't know if the Welsh Gov. owns all the woodland, but I guess as all the sites are protected in some way that is part of their remit whoever owns it.

** This was explained to me as damaging the ground flora (though the actual area covered by trails is tiny as a %). There has apparently been a badger set disturbance somewhere.

That all doesn't surprise me, or seem unreasonable.

The Ganol is owned by the Woodland Trust, and supposedly there are types of plants that are unique to that wood, how unique I don't know. Fawr is NRW and they're pretty chill about riding, I preferred that side until the NRW tore the arse out of it harvesting, but if we can legitimately repair it, that's great.

The Ganol has always been the contentious one and until the last few years there was a top line and a bottom line. The section at the top that had a couple of runs through and over a big bomb hole now looks like a bike park and the sections crossing the main walking path are way to obvious and way to easy to upset people, you just can't build gaps over walking paths or massive rollers than end on them, it just upsets people.