Record of a Forest Service Consultation Meeting on Mountain Biking

Record of a Forest Service Consultation Meeting on Mountain Biking held at 1.00 pm on Saturday 17 December 2005 in the Interpretative Centre, Castlewellan Forest Park.

Chairman: John Joe O’Boyle, Director of Forest Operations
Secretary: Karen Orr, Estates Manager

The Chairman welcomed everyone and introduced Forest Service staff. Attendees to the meeting identified themselves as representatives of the Glens Development Group, EHS, CAAN and MTB Rider, and included approximately 60 mountain bikers.

The Chairman acknowledged that the issue of mountain biking in forests had been controversial. He recognised that many organisations had devoted considerable effort and commitment to this issue. From the Forest Service perspective it had tried to clarify matters of forest policy, government accountability and the physical and technical issues of managing forests with cycling promoters and mountain bikers through meetings and correspondence.

The Chairman stated that the “objective of the meeting is to commence an effective consultation process with mountain bikers and interested groups on the issue of their use of public forests”. He explained that despite much communication and the large volume of correspondence on the subject, it was clear that progress has not been satisfactory. A more effective consultation process with all parties may lead to better progress.

The Chairman invited attendees to present their views on the mountain biking issue. Having noted the views from the floor, these were categorised under the following areas for discussion purposes: -

Policy - Forest Policy - Parity with GB
Resource requirements - Funding - Management of trails
Future Progress - Communication - Strategic approach / local approach - Timescales

Discussion on Main Views

Policy
The Chairman explained that forest policy is devolved to each of the countries within the UK and it is set by the Minister for each country to meet the particular circumstances and needs. The Minister was considering how the policy might be revised in NI. Note. The Minister subsequently made a written statement to parliament on 24 March 2006 and the document “Northern Ireland Forestry – A strategy for sustainability and growth” was published at www.forestserviceni.gov.uk. The Chairman advised that the focus of this meeting ought to be on determining the scope for progress within forest policy.

Parity with GB
The mountain bikers stated that their expectation was that Forest Service should provide purpose built trails in forests to the same standard as the GB trails. Forest Service agreed that any trails should be of suitable quality and that additionally they must be sustainable, affordable and compatible with other objectives. It was explained that NI has small forests relative to GB particularly in the main areas of population and the impacts of proposed trails on these forests are many times higher than they would be on similar trails in larger forests. Forest Service confirmed that they had visited sites in GB to discuss construction and management issues at first hand with Forestry Commission colleagues.

Funding
The Forest Service was asked if it was prepared, not just to enter into meaningful partnerships with mountain bikers, but with other organisations e.g. Northern Ireland Events Company to ensure that EU funds can be utilised to support tourism, rural regeneration and to reduce social exclusion. The Chairman responded that the Forest Service primary remit was to deliver forest policy but within that there was scope to develop partnerships with other bodies. The issue that has been difficult to resolve is that prospective partners are often only able to offer capital funding. There is often a significant gap between this type of help and the recurrent costs of managing the facilities and dealing with the additional costs that arise from the increased complexity of managing the trees to produce timber. The details of trail route and design can have a major impact on whether a proposal is likely to be viable or not. There is scope for the potential partners to develop a better understanding of what is possible and desirable.

Management of Trails / Conflict with Other Users
Mountain bikers recognised that any trails provided for their use would need to be managed and stated that their belief was that this could only improve any interaction between them and other forest users. Attendees generally acknowledged that mountain biking in public forests outside of Gortin and Moneyscalp was not authorised by Forest Service. Forest Service added that future proposals would need to consider these management issues and identify how the resources are to be put in place to allow for their ongoing use.

Effective Communication
The representative from the Glens Development Group stated that his Group had been keen to develop trails since 1998 and could not understand why Forest Service was now starting a consultation process. The Chairman explained that there had already been a significant amount of communication with interested bodies and that the need was for a more effective communication process to be established which deals with the full implications of cycling proposals on forests. A representative of MTB Rider welcomed the purpose of this meeting and wished to see Forest Service move this process forward.

Strategic Approach / Local Approach
The representatives from CAAN stated the need for a strategic approach to mountain bike provision within Northern Ireland. A MTB Rider representative asked if Forest Service preferred more local solutions and when would Forest Service be taking the initiative for developing purpose built trails. The Chairman explained that the Forest Service remit did not extend to leading development of trails of the scale and type described by mountain bikers. This does not, however, preclude Forest Service playing an active role in the development of trails where forestry objectives and full resource requirements are suitably taken into account.

Timescales
Several mountain bikers expressed their dissatisfaction at the amount of time spent so far on the issue of mountain biking, with no progress on purpose built trails. They asked how long it would be before such trails would be in place. The Chairman explained that the Forest Service could not give timescales, as this was dependent on suitable proposals being produced.

Key Points Emerging

The Chairman summarised the key points emerging as follows: -

1. Are there going to be trails?
2. Who is going to build them?
3. A general acceptance that trail proposals need to take greater account of forestry issues.

The Chairman addressed the first key point i.e. are there going to be trails? He explained a key requirement before trail construction could be permitted was for proposals to demonstrate economic viability, which would require an Economic Appraisal that showed a positive outcome when taking full account of all impacts on forestry. Recurrent management and maintenance costs, trail closures and repairs due to forestry operations and the impacts of trail construction on other objectives need to be included, as well as construction costs.

The Chairman explained that the Forest Service had no plans to build trails itself for the time being, and referred to the Minister’s Press Release. This had placed the onus on individual trail promoters to develop sound proposals.

The Chairman explained that Forest Service experience was that there was not a clear understanding about how cycling proposals can have an adverse impact on forests. As an example he gave a presentation on work done in assessing cycling proposals for Gortin Glen and Rosterevor Forests. The presentation showed the layout of the forest, the forest roads, and the cycling proposals for three mountain bike trail loops totalling 47kms at Gortin and 29km at Rostrevor. However these forests are also important forest for timber production and when the felling plans for 10 year period 2005 – 2015 were superimposed on the proposed trail map it showed that the trails would not in fact be available for cycling for about six months in any year at Gortin and similar effects at Rostrevor, due to the need to harvest timber over the trails.

Some mountain bikers said that they were prepared to accept temporary closures, as this was common practice with the GB trails. The Chairman then explained that the size limitations of the Gortin Glen site meant that there were very few opportunities for alternative routes to link up trails when sections are unavailable. This is an important difference from the GB models. A consequence was that the effects of trail closures was likely to have a direct impact on the expected numbers of mountain bike visitors and hence reduce the economic value of the proposed trails.

In response to a comment that the previous strategy had failed and everyone needed to move on, the Chairman suggested that cycling promoters needed to consider the larger forests in the west of the province. There was a strong opinion that mountain bikers would travel to those forests, as they already had to travel to GB. One of the CAAN representatives expressed the need to balance the costs of providing infrastructure i.e. car parking, toilets, etc against the costs of constructing the trails in forests without infrastructure.

Purpose Built Trails
The Chairman confirmed that Forest Service would work positively with any promoter of mountain bike trails to find workable solutions. Forest Service staff resources can be used positively, feeding in technical aspects of forest management through an effective consultation process in the development of future proposals. It was confirmed that Forest Service had already agreed to apply to the Department of Finance and Personnel (DFP) for additional resources where proposals demonstrate the value for money requirements through robust economic appraisal.

Wider Use of Forests
Different views were expressed from interested parties and not all attending were requesting purpose built trails. Forest Service suggested that there was scope for permitting cycling through a form of registration and authorisation in some forests using existing tracks where this is compatible with the forest objectives. The Chairman welcomed the initial interest and undertook to follow up this discussion at a later stage.

Effective Consultation
Mountain Bikers welcomed the initiation of the meeting and agreed that it had achieved its objective of commencing more effective communication. The representative from the Glens Development Group suggested that a Working Party containing representatives from the various Government bodies and mountain bikers should be set up. A representative from MTB Rider suggested that alternatively the mountain bikers should convene to reflect on the meeting and to seek consensus on how mountain bikers best represent themselves in subsequent consultation. This view was generally supported.

The EHS representative asked if Forest Service could recommend a suitable forest for development in view of the reducing opportunities for European funding. Several mountain bikers requested a list of forests that might be suitable for trail development. The Chairman stated it would not be difficult to produce a list of potential forests as a starting point but the scale and type of project would have a significant bearing on the overall suitability of the forest being used for trail development. The EHS representative undertook to consider with CAAN funding and resource requirements.

Close

The Chairman thanked everyone for their participation. It was agreed that a record of the meeting would be published on the Forest Service website with a copy being e-mailed to mtbrider.com.

The meeting closed at 4.15pm

Karen Orr
Forest Service (Estates Branch)