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Rushup (Dark Peak) needs you!

Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2018 7:05 am
by redefined_cycles
Please can everyone take a minute to browse yhis article in Singletrack and make a respinse to Derbyshire Council who are attempting to screw up what seems to be a mice trail in the Dark Peak.

I've not written my letter yet but pleasr don't copy and paste as the council have stated (according to the ST article) that such responses would be ignored...

Re: Rushup (Dark Peak) needs you!

Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2018 7:11 am
by redefined_cycles
Heres a letter detailing pertinent points made by Keepers of the Peak:

https://kofthep.com/2018/06/04/rushup-i ... t-results/

Re: Rushup (Dark Peak) needs you!

Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2018 8:58 am
by In Reverse
Any link to the STW article?

Re: Rushup (Dark Peak) needs you!

Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2018 9:15 am
by Dave Barter

Re: Rushup (Dark Peak) needs you!

Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2018 10:13 pm
by fatbikephil
Its a nice idea to just patch up bits, but in reality impossible - how do you get the stone in to patch? Over the bits you aren't patching, which get wrecked, and need patching. You can fly stuff in but that's £100 per ton plus material costs - fine for a narrow path but not feasible for a track. So you either do a full construction or leave alone. Its easy to slag the council off but if its a BOAT then it needs to be built using proper materials in order to withstand the use it gets. As mountainbikers we can't expect LA's to manage ROW's purely as mountain biking routes and creating a few easier trails makes the hills more accessible to more people. There are plenty of rough descents out there....

Re: Rushup (Dark Peak) needs you!

Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2018 8:38 am
by In Reverse
It's not the fact that they're removing a rough descent - I think everyone would be happy if they gave it the same treatment they gave Roych Clough which is now stone pitched/stepped and still "rough" - it's that their proposals are unsuitable. The drawings show a big chunk of it getting a Type 1 covering which will end up exactly the same as the covering they gave to the eastern end of the track a couple of years ago - washed away leaving ruts and blocked drainage ditches. Other bits are going to have concrete which is not an appropriate material for a natural trail like that.

It's possible to make the trail more accessible to walkers with access issues without completely sanitising it - as I said they've done it at Roych Clough which is less then 2km away - but for some reason the RoW and Highways chaps at DCC seem to be hell bent on pushing their current proposals through, probably because they've paid AECOM several £k to produce them...

Re: Rushup (Dark Peak) needs you!

Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 11:42 am
by ianfitz
htrider wrote:Its a nice idea to just patch up bits, but in reality impossible - how do you get the stone in to patch? Over the bits you aren't patching, which get wrecked, and need patching. You can fly stuff in but that's £100 per ton plus material costs - fine for a narrow path but not feasible for a track. So you either do a full construction or leave alone. Its easy to slag the council off but if its a BOAT then it needs to be built using proper materials in order to withstand the use it gets. As mountainbikers we can't expect LA's to manage ROW's purely as mountain biking routes and creating a few easier trails makes the hills more accessible to more people. There are plenty of rough descents out there....

It is a BOAT but as with most of them in the peak has a TRO which the council applied for. They have no intent to reopen it to motor traffic.

These ‘repairs’ are opposed by walkers and horse rider groups too.

Re: Rushup (Dark Peak) needs you!

Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 6:58 pm
by fatbikephil
In Reverse wrote:It's not the fact that they're removing a rough descent - I think everyone would be happy if they gave it the same treatment they gave Roych Clough which is now stone pitched/stepped and still "rough" - it's that their proposals are unsuitable. The drawings show a big chunk of it getting a Type 1 covering which will end up exactly the same as the covering they gave to the eastern end of the track a couple of years ago - washed away leaving ruts and blocked drainage ditches. Other bits are going to have concrete which is not an appropriate material for a natural trail like that.

It's possible to make the trail more accessible to walkers with access issues without completely sanitising it - as I said they've done it at Roych Clough which is less then 2km away - but for some reason the RoW and Highways chaps at DCC seem to be hell bent on pushing their current proposals through, probably because they've paid AECOM several £k to produce them...
Could be down to dosh then - stone pitching is about £150 per sq m, 200mm of type 1 is around £50 per sq m. If its done right and you do the drainage properly then it should last and if its from a local quarry it will look alright. If you get a Roads engineer involved then type 1 will always be the go to so it could be down to how resourced (or not) the councils countryside / ROW's team are. AECOM are good at Transport Planning but I wouldn't let them anywhere near a countryside track / ROW.
ianfitz wrote:
It is a BOAT but as with most of them in the peak has a TRO which the council applied for. They have no intent to reopen it to motor traffic.

These ‘repairs’ are opposed by walkers and horse rider groups too.
Interesting, both user groups typically hate pitching (hard to walk down, hard on hooves and slippery when wet) whereas a good hard type 1 / dust surface suits both users well. So I suspect they are expecting it to fail like the other section mentioned or its the old 'sanitising the countryside' routine.

Ideally you source material on site (no need to import / haul, matches local environment) but this needs the correct geology to work. A lot of former Byways and RUPPS in the dales were done this way (many bits of the PBW included) and its worked pretty well. If its bog central then imported quarry materials are the only way unless you have a big budget....

So I guess my point is, the Council has a duty to maintain ROW's but limited dosh to do this, hence their spec. That's down to central govt slashing funding for councils year on year. At least we are getting a new runway at Heathrow out of the deal :roll:

Re: Rushup (Dark Peak) needs you!

Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2018 6:19 pm
by PaulB
There is no supply in the Peak District for crushed gritstone. The gritstone that is used on any track renovation/creation is imported from Lancashire. The area is SSSI and introducing large amounts of limestone into a gritstone area is going to alter pH levels somewhere, or a white streak in a brown area depending on which angle you want to look at it from.

The original road on the Edale side was tarmac, the Rushup side is mainly gritstone bedrock with a peat moorland for a short bit in the middle.

Re: Rushup (Dark Peak) needs you!

Posted: Sat Jan 22, 2022 12:09 am
by In Reverse
No doubt locals have seen this but Derbyshire County Council are still making an absolute arse of natural trails in the Peak District. Unbelievable what they've done on Pin Dale, and the idea that they were going to do the same to Cave Dale is just unfathomable stuidity.

Pictures in the link below tell the story effectively enough.

http://peakdistrictmtb.org/alarming-wor ... y-council/

Re: Rushup (Dark Peak) needs you!

Posted: Sat Jan 22, 2022 8:58 pm
by RIP
At least apparently DCC have halted work and will remove the inappropriate material in Pin Dale and replace fully with local limestone. But the act of resurfacing at all still remains and has spoiled it from MTB point of view :sad: . Obviously next step is to prevent them touching Cave Dale at all....

Guess it's a bit sensitive all round though with DCC presumably playing the 'improving access for all' card...