National Parks - Sydney North

Local rider reps met with NPWS last week to discuss where things were at and also talked with contacts in State Government. This has been ongoing since we initially met with NPWS and policy advisors in 2009 http://nobmob.com/node/11175.

We were informed that recent meetings had taken place with Mike Baird (State Treasurer, whom has been helping us last few years) and the Office of Environment (formerly DECCW, under which NPWS resides) and all was positive.

Parks also discussed generally about some areas they were investigating for trails in the Sydney North region. The chosen site will form the long awaited pilot study.

In August rider reps can expect to be invited to meet with a trail contractor, trail builder and environmental guys to look over some areas and provide local rider input. This will be a focus group meeting and also a site walk.

Following this will be formal processes called Review of Environmental Factors (REF's) which are detailed flora, fauna, aborginal heritage studies etc, design and later construction. This is not an over night process and will take some time, however this is a massive win for us in the Sydney region.

This trail will be studied in terms of usage, wear etc for local Sydney conditions in addition to the standard monitoring etc typical on a managed trail.

NPWS are also using their guidance to coordinate with local Councils to produce a regional strategy that provides more detail than the State Strategy.