Derbyshire County Council’s decision to continue their original plan on Rushup Edge is an absolute kick in the teeth.
A kick in the teeth for KoftheP, Peak District MTB, the Local Access Forum, Ride Sheffield, the Peak District National Park Authority, the British Mountaineering Council, the Friends of the Peak District, Natural England and thousands of trail users.

A kick in the teeth for everyone who posted in support of the campaign, for everyone who wrote, called and emailed DCC asking them to properly reconsider.

A kick in the teeth for the so-called ‘consultation process’ which was clearly just a totally disingenuous exercise in ‘listening’ by DCC.

But perhaps most worryingly, it was a kick in the teeth for the democratic process upon which a council like DCC should operate.

The stats collected by PDMTB show that most users of the trail don’t want the repairs. Thousands of you responded saying no. The DCC argument is simply not right, not logical and completely unjustified. Expert guidance blew massive holes in their central argument yet DCC have chosen to completely ignore it. Thousands of Derbyshire residents have supported the campaign – which comes at a time of major cuts in the county council’s front line services.

Yet the Rights of Way team at Derbyshire have simply ignored this measured, balanced response and misrepresented the views of the collective campaigners. They’ve created a report which makes out that the only opposition was from mountain bikers; which anyone who has read the various reports will know is rubbish. And they’ve then presented this misleading and misrepresentative report to the councillors who were expected to make an ‘informed’ decision based on fact.

All in all it’s pretty crap.

But is there a silver lining? We have to look for one. To me, this whole process has delivered one great result – there is a huge community now. The biking community has come together, and importantly we’ve built links with other groups; horse riders, walkers, climbers, conservationists, disabled access groups. We’ve learnt a whole lot of lessons about council operations, media briefing, campaigning (to which we were/are all new).

It may not be over; it isn’t until a spade is in the ground, but it certainly doesn’t feel like a victory.

Next step? We’re working on it.

Tomorrow marks the day that Derbyshire County Council will finally make a decision on what’s going to happen to Rushup Edge.
We’ve had eight months of so-called consultation.
In that time there have been hundreds of emails, hours of meetings, many phone calls and numerous late, late nights writing emails and reports. It’s been a slog.
But it’s been made easy by the immense support from the mountain biking community here in the north and beyond. Over the last few months, the Rushup campaign has galvanised thousands of riders and created a fantastic community spirit. Words of encouragement and support on forums, Twitter, Facebook and in email has kept the energy levels up and driven us on to carry on pushing DCC. And it’s not just riders. We’ve had great support too from walkers, horse riders, climbers, councillors – even MPs.

It’s been incredibly rewarding to see this groundswell of support.

And it shows that we can all pull together.

Of course, we may not get a result we’re after on Rushup. We hope DCC see sense and start listening no matter how late in the day it is, but whatever happens we’ve achieved a huge amount since this all kicked off with a tweet about the work starting.

At the very least we’ve made DCC think twice about ignoring mountain bikers as an influential group. But more than that, we’ve also built strong and important bridges with other non-biking groups. We may not always see eye to eye, but now we’re actually talking and that’s a big difference to this time last year.

As such, we now have a whole host of allies to call on next time DCC do something daft. And it will happen again.

In the meantime – ahead of DCC tarmaccing the rest of the Peak – I’m going to get out on my bike. It’s been months.

Last weekend’s Steel City DH was a phenomenal success. An incredible atmosphere, huge crowds, great racing and above all the absolute confirmation that trail advocacy works.

The Steel City DH is the blue riband event in Ride Sheffield’s now very busy calendar. Held in Grenoside woods on the north of Sheffield, the event is only possible thanks to the great work Ride Sheffield, This Is Sheffield and of course a certain Mr Steve Peat have done in building relationships with those who can make or break an idea like it.

They’ve worked hard to build a good working relationship with the Rights of Way team at Sheffield City Council and the Wildlife Trusts who own Grenoside woods. This has opened the doors to allow them to run the event – now in its fifth year – and raise vital funds to support trail building and advocacy projects elsewhere in Sheffield.

It’s a domino effect which is delivering fantastically for riders; Lady Cannings is well under way, Bolehills BMX track has had a comprehensive facelift, Blacka Moor has been regularly maintained and the relationship with landowners goes from strength to strength.

There is a core group behind Ride Sheffield; a small cohort who have turned a desire to improve things locally into a nationally recognised example of how trail advocacy and campaigning should be done.

Without a few thousand riders behind them though, it would just be a bunch of mates tidying the local trails – precisely how they started out.

You are no doubt one of those few thousand riders. Without your support, Ride Sheffield won’t have the political clout to push for the great things we’ve seen so far. The same can be said for Peak District MTB or any other trail advocacy group up and down the country.

So buy a t-shirt, follow them on Twitter, attend dig days – do whatever you can to support the work of these groups.

It all helps show that we’re taking responsibility for places we ride, organising ourselves and seeking to work constructively with the powers that be to make a positive difference for all – and not just mountain bikers.

And that can only be a good thing.

Cheers Ride Sheffield. See you on the podium next year ;o)

Yesterday I went along to the Spirit of Kinder event, which celebrated the Kinder Trespass of 1932 and the opening of the Pennine Way 50 years ago.
One of the talks at the event was on the Scottish Model and how it could (or should) be implemented in England. Dave Morris is a former Director of Ramblers Scotland and was at the core of the group that pushed for access – supported by the Scottish Access Code.
The Code was adopted in 2004 and provides guidance on how people can access land and waterways responsibly either by foot or unmotorised transport. It’s been hugely successful, not least economically; where despite little investment, large numbers of tourists have visited areas and business has sprung up.

So could it work here? Well why not? If you were riding a path in the Scottish borders that crossed into England and became a footpath, would you be doing more damage? No – of course not.

And that’s the crux of the code – it’s all about being responsible. Taking care of what, when and how you ride. You’ll no doubt see the parallels with KoftheP.

So what next? Well I’m going to be talking with a number of the groups who were at the meeting: Peak District MTB, National Trust, The BMC and many more who have an interest; Ride Sheffield, the Ramblers, Peak Horsepower, Accesible Derbyshire, to see what there’s the appetite to do.

Keep following.

There’s not been much noise around Rushup recently. We’ve been awaiting Derbyshire County Council’s decision on what to do [quick timescale review: public responses were expected by Jan 16, Peter White was sending a report to Cllr Dean Collins – he with the money – by March], but that is as yet unforthcoming. So we decided to bypass Peter and send a note directly to Cllr Collins highlighting some of the key points we expected Peter’s report to highlight. Check out the campaigns pages to find out more,

The trail access rights riders enjoy in Scotland are seen as the holy grail of rights of way entitlement in the UK. A couple of years ago there was a lot of excitement when it was rumoured that Wales may too go for a real access for all approach – but sadly it didn’t come to pass.

Now, to commemorate the Kinder Trespass of 1932, the Spirit of Kinder event is holding a meeting to look at how the access model works in Scotland and whether it could work south of the border. The Edale Village hall meeting – 25 April, 2pm – will also commemorate the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Pennine Way, which starts in the village.

Of course, any discussion regarding ‘the Scottish model’ couldn’t possibly go ahead without the input from mountain bikers – after all, mountain biking investment has proved hugely successful in the seven Stanes and around Fort William – so i’d encourage you to go along and speak up for mountain bikers. I’m certainly hoping to get there.

We are an under-represented group so it’s down to us to make our voice heard  – responsibly – when the opportunity presents itself.

You can find out more on the meeting here:

http://www.grough.co.uk/magazine/2015/02/12/kinder-trespass-gathering-looks-to-scots-style-right-to-roam-as-election-looms

See you there!