Peak District MTB members have reacted with understandable alarm at the appearance of aggregate on Hollinsclough Rake, near Longnor in Staffordshire – so what’s the deal?
Way back in January 2021 Staffordshire County Council (SCC) asked for views on proposed works on Hollinsclough Rakes. The deadline was January 31 2021 and Peak District MTB submitted a response you can see in the link – obviously making a strong case for mountain bikers’ views to be taken on board as one of the biggest user groups on the hill. We also asked members to respond to the consultation strongly.
SCC wrote back thanking us for our ‘official’ response and acknowledge some 1600 replies to their original consultation. We can’t say what those responses were – that would be a next level of investigation for our little plucky volunteer group – but knowing the MTB community’s passion for protecting our paths we can only assume our views were well represented. SCC did promise to publish regular updates to their website on the work, but as you can see, the detail is somewhat lacking.
So where are we? Well we’re going to push SCC for more details on the actual plans and for the responses to the consultation. We strongly encourage you to do the same.
A few important points:
- We’ve followed the process to the letter here, done everything the right way in the democratic process. If we haven’t made our voice heard loudly enough we must look at how we do that next time around. The consultation responses will give us an idea of that.
- We can’t conflate SCC actions with DCC (Derbyshire County Concil) actions. Though it’s early days, DCC are making better effort to talk to us. This is a different council with different people. Let’s not immediately go to DEFCOM 1.
- We’ll get on with finding out the deal asap. Please do the same, naming us in your contacts.
Photo credit and thanks to Adrian who posted on our Facebook group.
