Sheffield Riders - Chapeltown, Greno, High Green etc. areas!

Johnny Napalm

First ride on the bike today after four weeks' due to being abroad on business...and boy did I know about it!

Anyway, back to the point. I ride through Greno Wood on my way to Wharncliffe and noticed the woodland was up for sale a few weeks' ago. As I have not been up there for four weeks I have only just seen this sign today, so apologies if this has already been mentioned.

Seems a great opportunity for local riders to have some input! Unfortunately I won't be able to go because I'll be abroad again for work, which is a shame because I would definitely have gone to the meeting.

supersonic

Very interesting! If I am well, I will be there. Greno has a lot of potential for biking. Build a bridge across Wood Head rd and link up to Wharny, wow, would be great!

Johnny Napalm

Build a bridge across Wood Head rd and link up to Wharny, wow, would be great!

Hey up, mate. With ideas like that we can't afford you not to go to the meeting.

Hope that you'll soon be on the mend, buddy! Take it easy.

supersonic

If you want me to mention owt, just say!

Johnny Napalm

It'd be great to have some nice, flowing trails, which it kind of has anyway, and something that caters for all abilities. Trouble is, it ain't a large area so they're going to have to squeeze in as much as they can.

mrfmilo

Was riding in Greno woods a couple months back and found some trails - pretty good, there's definately potential for more stuff

ilovedirt

Get Peaty up there, he's from Chapeltown

Johnny Napalm

A bit of an update -

The ownership issue is fairly complicated in that we have got a charitable funder to buy the woods for us with a view to us securing the £1M needed within two years to pay them back and buy the woods outright. The legal stuff has just gone through so essentially we’re the site managers now and are quite hopeful of securing the necessary funds (we’ll be asking the Sheffield mountain bike community for their support too!). In terms of trails I’m keen to develop something really good on the understanding that there is balance with the other needs of the site (biodiversity/walking/horse riding etc) and whatever is developed is sustainable. Wednesday’s session is all about us understanding what local bikers value about the existing trails, discussing any potential conflicts with other users and getting people’s ideas for how biking within the site could be enhanced. As always trail development will be subject to funding but if the support’s there I’d like to think this will be found. I’m really keen to talk to my counterparts who manage the adjacent woods (FC-Wharn. and SCC-Wheata) to see if there’s scope for joined up thinking/collaborative working in terms of woodland management and recreation across all three land-holdings – I’d view biking as a key part of this.

Roy Mosley MIEEM
Head of Land Management
The Wildlife Trust of Sheffield & Rotherham

I have been in contact with Mr. Mosley and mentioned that I have posted on the forum, which he is ok with...providing that this is also ok with Bike Radar?

Basically, the local wildlife trust have charitable investors who purchased the land to take it off the open-market, and have given the trust two years to raise the money to purchase the woodland. If they do not raise the funds within two years, then the woodland will go back onto the open-market and may be sold off for commercial gain (broken up into smaller private, woodland holdings, which would put paid to any sort of strategic recreation provision). They are also trying to involve a certain Mr. Peat too, who if current arrangements allow, will try to make it to the meeting this week.

I know that not everyone on here will be directly connected with this area, but I feel that it is a great opportubity for Sheffield mtb'ers to get involved and help make this work. I have already offered my time etc. and I'm pretty confident that others will do similar providing they get the message out there to them.

Shaunw1973

I'd be interested in getting involved. I don't know Greno woods at all (I live in Chapeltown - but haven't been there long), I didn't even know there were trails in there (where do you get access to them?).

I joined Singletraction as I wanted to help develop Wharncliffe, but the FE had other ideas and there's nothing going on there now.

What happened at the meeting? Anyone know?

supersonic

I couldn't make it in the end, but it was featured on Look North.

Greno is a big place - easiest way to access is to go to the top of bracken hill, cross the main road and go up the little lane directly opposite.

Shaunw1973

supersonic wrote:

I couldn't make it in the end, but it was featured on Look North.

Greno is a big place - easiest way to access is to go to the top of bracken hill, cross the main road and go up the little lane directly opposite.

Ta - I'll have a look at the weekend.

Ro88o

Too late for the meeting, but i`m glad something positive is happening in greno.

The lads who have maintained the trails / jumps over the years have done so with no outside help at all (knock em down and build em back up mentality lives)

If they add an airbag to Peatys drop i might even give it a go...lol

I think a visit up there this weekend may be on the cards too.

Shaunw1973

Am sure Roy wouldn't mind thsi being shared:

All,



Apologies for the delay in responding to people – I’ve been busy on various things following the acquisition but have a bit of time now to think more about biking. Thanks to everyone who came on 18th – great to see such enthusiasm for biking in the Wharn-Greno area. As promised I’ve attached the Greno leaflet which provides some basic information and a map of the landholding.



I’ve got a meeting with the other forest owners (FC and SCC) next week and biking will be one of the items on the agenda – will provide an update following this. We also have a few other things coming up – an invite-only key stakeholder event on site at 10 am on the 17th September. Steve P, Henry Winter (Ride Sheffield) and Dan Cook (CTC) will be invited to represent the interests of bikers. The second event is a more general open day/consultation event – this is on the 26th September 11 – 4 pm. I suggest as many bikers as possible attend this, to give your views on how the site should develop. I’m also planning on going up to site on the 10th Sep at 10 am with a view to mapping out the bike trails using GPS – if anyone with good local knowledge wants to give me a hand with this please let me know. In terms of a follow-up biking meeting, I’m thinking of organising something in October as there’s quite a bit going on in September.



Our website for the site has recently gone live – check out www.grenowoods.com . Keen to have a specific page on this for biking with some good images etc – anyone keen to help me with this let me know. Someone suggested setting up a facebook group – will look into this.



We’ll also be launching our public appeal soon – through a combination of grant funding and the public appeal need to raise £1Million to buy the woods outright and carry out essential management/maintenance work. Would Sheffield’s mountain bike community be up for the challenge of raising £50k towards this over the next two years?



What can you do to support biking within Greno?



Feed your ideas through to Steve/Henry/Dan so your views are taken to the stakeholder event
Attend the public open day on 26th September (11-4pm)
Attend and contribute to any future Greno Bikers meetings
Support us in our fundraising efforts – buy 10m2 for £10
Become a member of Sheffield Wildlife Trust at www.wildsheffield.com (only £24/year)


Thanks,



Roy