Currently, the national percentage of rights of way that are bridleways is around 22%.
In the Peak District, it’s only around 11%.
So today we’re launching our 22% campaign – aimed at creating parity in the percentage of rideable rights of way in the national park with that of the rest of the UK.
Mileage-wise, that’s just 136 miles of bridleways. 220km in new money. It should be at least 272 miles (440km).
To put this into context, there are 2,136km of footpaths in the national park, upgrading our target number of these to bridleway status would still leave 1,916km of rights of way with footpath status, the more than the distance from London to Minsk, in Belarus.
Peak District chair, Dan Noble, commented, “When Peak District MTB was first established around 5 years ago, our core goal was to increase the amount of access available to mountain bikers. In that time there have been some notable successes, especially around the fringes of Sheffield through work done by Ride Sheffield and more recently we have had some success on the Roaches and worked with the National Trust at Lyme Park to improve access.
“The Peak District National Park covers some 1,437 km², the park’s northern limits are on the A62 between Huddersfield and Oldham, and its southernmost point is on the A52 road near Ashbourne. In the east, it borders the western fringes of Chesterfield and Sheffield and reaches as far west as the outskirts of Macclesfield. There is plenty of scope and room to improve the bridleway network.”
So how do you get involved?
To start with, we need to know what you think should be upgraded. No brainer double-track footpaths that should be a bridleway, dead-end bridleways that completed will fix that loop for you, anything…. we want to hear about them. Let us know through this link:
That should help to get us started.
