my first complaint ...

[Alex J]

now seeing as ive got plenty of time on my hands at the moment i rang our local council to complain about a certain matter.
the story goes that around here we have one place to ride mountain, and bmx bikes at our local spot, owned and run by the council, it has been there for over 30 years and been enjoyed by hundreds of kids and adults alike, also been in alot of bmx magazines, and websites etc.
went down there today, and the whole place has been flattend to make way for a carpark of witch they already have one:mad:, it means kids have no were to ride now apart from the roads, and just seems a mad seeing as they must know this!
im now waiting for a call back to see what they have to say, i think a call to the local paper could be in order aswell
i dont do this sort of thing really, but i fell very strongly about it, has anyone ever had a moan of and got somewere, or am i wasting my time??? discuss....

here is the spot... http://20negative.com/spots/show/21-Grove-Trails

[Connor]

What a shame, rode there about 5-6 years ago. That blog you posted is pretty cool all the decent local venues are in there

[Jeff16v]

Merris, take up free running, perfect solution! lol

Cool pics on the blog

[nova_pipi]

i think iv heard of ths spot for riding, always wanted to go down but never got the chance, a mate of mine went to the council for around a year but going to every local meeting in an attempt to get a local skate park built and finally the council agreed to his case and built a skate park so i believe going to the council and putting your point across is worth while as long as you go enough times for people to take notice of you and you also speak to the right people that may also feel just as strongly about the matter or want to make a difference to the community

[24sevenslacker]

we have a bmx race track in hull, its been there about 10 years now, i learnt to ride there. it was open from 09:00 till about 16:00, so they closed it due to the fact nobody ever rode it, instead of opening later after all the kids have left school and mabye install a few flood lights. people could still ride it as they left the gates open, but now its just overgrown, people take nicked cars on there and burn them out, its anoyying because places like sheffield, chesterfield, mansfield, birmingham all have these sort of facilities and they all get ridden every day, i tried getting the council to do something with it last year but they didnt want to know.

[Edd]

There used to be a unofficial bmx track here, got flattened for health and safety reasons, few weeks later council people were in the local paper moaning about bmx' ers everywhere lol

Merris, if you have time on your hands and feel strongly about it, why not go to the paper? Cant see you getting much from the council tho sadly

[Andy]

Next will be a moan from the council about youths digging up private land as their track has been demolished.
Crazy when you think of the costs to hire machinery to do this.
Thats our great government though.

[mowgli]

Our local park had a ropey looking track, the kids started digging it up & adding to it, so the council took action, but luckily one of their parks people was mad keen on any form of bike sport, so he sorted it out.....it keeps the kids off the streets & on the track. They also put in an all weather floodlit multisports pitch/court type thing... Its never been vandalised, it is in constant use, and there is a sort of unofficial 5 a side league down there. Sometimes the council are quite good at these things, but you may need to be talking to the parks & leisure dept..

[Pete]

We have one in our local park, council done.
Been around for about 10 years now.

We had some twonks that decided to smash glass bottles all over it and completely wrecked it a few years back. Council refused to clear all the glass.
So in the end the local residents spent the weekend on it repairing the bits they'd fcked up and removing glass.


Keeps kids on the right path, hence why I still live in a quite village with no trouble what so ever from the locals.

[Bubba]

we had a local(ish) one, few doubles, couple tabletops, nothing massive but i spent every weekend there including the 15mile round trip riding there. it was always the same 15-20 down there every weekend so naturally bits were added and changed a bit.

then it got flattened. only one now is "the track" which i aint been to as you have to pay.

[Alex J]

had a phone call last night from the planning officer, and they told me that more space was needed for cars that use the feild for people playing football on a sunday morning, what about the other 6 and half days:mad:, they also told me that due to health and safety reason they took it down:roll:. why now? its been there like it is for 15 years:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad: :mad:
i will be contacting the local paper, and i must remember that the whole of my area plays football and isnt in to anything else:roll:

[mowgli]

merris, its down to the nimbys again..... have any riders been badly injured? do some research & then go public

[Stuart]

while its honourable, and you have the spare time, its a waste of time I reckon.

The council wont build a new BMX/MTB place for you to go :(

[Alex J]

while its honourable, and you have the spare time, its a waste of time I reckon.

The council wont build a new BMX/MTB place for you to go :(ill go dig up the cricket pitch , and the local nature reserve if its the case lol

[mowgli]

if the council design it, it will have steps & handrails.....

[Stuart]

We have a skate/bmx bit in the park here, the council removed the 1/4 pipes and replaced them with 1/8th pipes to reduce the height lol. Still atleast they did some removal and replace rather than build a carpark :)

[mowgli]

in a local village, they had a fabricated box section steel & plyboard ramp... over the years, the bolts got loose, the plyboards wore, and the noise echoing out from under it was annoying one particular house holder....
now, by pure coincidence, i was fitting a soft play surface for the bloke who did the maintenance on the park to the kiddy swings next to it when the locals, parish council & environmental health people turned up..

so we offered our opinion that stripping it down, placing rubber strips & sound deadening pads underneath, and re bolting it, and also filling the void underneath where the noise was coming from with soil, which could be done for way under a grand, and would appease everyone....

the parish council decided to pay someone £1500 to remove it totally, so the local skaters & bmxers make their own ramps & are even more of a nuisance now...

[Jack]

if the council design it, it will have steps & handrails.....
Isn't that what the skaters and BMX kids want though, so they can jump off them and stuff? lol

The planning dept should have put up signs and publicised the fact the site was going to be flattened and had a public consultation period where you air your complaints. Would be interesting to see if that process was followed as that may give you some form of legal angle, but as Stu said its unlikely anything will come of it - they certainly won't tear up a fresh car park just to reinstate a BMX track.

Maybe try a petition to get another one built? I'm no skater/BMX'er but having seen the popularity of the one in Dorchester, I think they're a great idea.

[24sevenslacker]

it takes a lot of planning to build a bmx track/skatepark as its all got to flow together, and thinks have to work, you cant just stick ramps everywhere and hope it works, i think thats where they get it wrong sometimes, then nobody will use it coz its crap, there is one in rotherham called wincobank and its only small, i think it cost around 10K to build, but its got so many different lines which you can swap and change, its really fun and whenever you go there its always got a dozen or so kids riding there, something like that is all you need sometimes.