Hello all,
Please take the time to read as this is useful information for our club on a proposal to improve the off road (gravel) cycling routes
across the New Forest.
Summary :
The New Forest Cycle Working Group (CWG) comprises representatives from the National Park authority (NPA), Forestry England (FE)
and various cycling groups across the region including NewForce representation (me).
During lock-down a small subgroup from NPA, FE, cycling groups and, importantly, several elected Verderers worked on a proposal to improve
the existing off road (gravel) from the current 150 KM to add an additional 80KM. They walked many proposed routes together and reached an agreement on which to include within this proposal.
As there is agreement and considerable evidence that cycling in the New Forest can be difficult due to the existing network being hard to
navigate and disconnected. Many routes simply don’t make sense and do not connect to the key routes in and out of the forest. As a result,
people simply get lost or end up creating more effective routes of their own, often using apps that do this for them. Others simply choose to
bypass the network completely. It is clear that the current nature of the cycle network greatly exacerbates these issues.
This proposal was made to the Verderer's court in Lyndhurst on the 18th September in a presentation by the Deputy Surveyor of the New Forest.
The next step is that CWG members and others who may not support this proposal will attend the next Verderers court on the 16th of October and
are allowed to make a short presentation before the Verderer's court makes their decision. I will share further information once known.
If this proposal is agreed it will take significant time (years) to implement and budget (~£650K) needs to be allocated for the improvements.
Proposal :
The proposal can be found on the link below on the Verders website.
https://www.verderers.org.uk/announceme ... -18-09-24/
It includes a downloaded pdf map of the Proposed improvements and supporting information.