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Hornsby Council XC single track update - next step to make it happen - emails written now as the time for comments closing soon
I have some feedback from council. The proposal (as posted by Noel) is out for comment from the public. They will take the feedback from the public (us) and assess the level of support for each area of the Unstructured Recreation Draft Plan. Its pretty simple. If there is a lot of support from the public for a particular area of the plan (for example bushwalking) then they will progress it and put it to council for a capital works plan. If there is not a lot of support then it will be canned.
There have not been a lot of letters/emails written in support of a XC track so as it is it may not carry a lot of weight.
The times for comments closes in about a week.
If any can PLEASE write an email to Anthony Newling [email protected]
You could also copy [email protected]
And get your friends to write aswell. Even a one liner.
I’m sure you can think of what to say but some ideas;
You would use it, are supportive and think it’s a great idea
Its needed due to the lack of facilities in the area and the provision of such a facility would reduce the impact on other areas where bikes are now going illegally.
You would be supportive of being involved in track maintenance
If you are local mention that you are local to the area and better still provide your address.
Etc etc
Please try to get anyone else you know to do the same!
There is a lot of support within the council but in some ways they are just members of the public and need public opinion to push the cause.
If they could get 100 legit emails of support it would really help this become reality.
Cheers
Campbell
[Mod. moved to Sydney North]
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here's the link from noel again in case you weren't sure where it was posted...
http://www.hornsby.nsw.gov.au/onexhibition/index......
Exhibited until: 21 Oct 2008
if you like mountain biking and you're anywhere at all near hornsby write a brief letter!
Greetings,
I’d like to express my strong support for the provision of cross-country mountain biking facilities in the Unstructured Recreation Strategy.
For the fifth year in a row, the sale of new bicycles has outstripped the sale of new cars, and my understanding from a number of sources is that approximately 70% of those sales are of mountain bikes.
The provision of quality cross-country mountain biking trails known as “singletrack” is demonstrated to be one of the strongest attraction for bicycle tourism in a number of overseas countries and Australian localities, providing significant measurable monetary net benefits to the immediately surrounding communities. Sustainable models of partnership between Councils and local user communities exist in Wagga, Canberra, and Warringah (Manly Dam in particular). Trails that use the natural terrain rather than engineered solutions, and are designed and built to minimise erosion risk are far more interesting for users than graded fire roads (which most mountain bikers regard as singularly boring), and would provide maximum enjoyment and attraction for users at the minimum environmental impact and cost to Council.
Provision of such facilities would have the following benefits:
• Improvement in exercise rates among the local population
• Improvement in appreciation for the natural environment (this is from my personal experience)
• Discouragement of the use and construction of illegal and environmentally unsustainable trails by the provision of an attractive alternative
• Attraction of users from outside the area who spend and contribute to the local economy
If such facilities were provided in the Hornsby area my XX year old son and I would definitely travel to use them, spending money in your locality for refreshment at a minimum. The popularity of our sport is growing so rapidly that it is putting the existing limited available legal trails under pressure, and an increase in alternatives helps everybody. Manly Dam sees many hundreds of users a day every weekend.
For the purposes of providing demographic information, I am a XX-year old male. I am a professional with business and investment interests and we have a high disposable family income. We use our mountain bikes for several hours each weekend and much of our travel and holiday planning is influenced by whether mountain biking trails and facilities exist in a given area.
I trust you find this information useful.
Regards,
[Name, telephone number and address provided]
Signed.
I'll post this on Farkin too.
Ric
http://www.farkin.net/forums/showthread.php?t=14...
Now THATs a letter. I'll handwrite out a variant and snailmail it. Ive heard council love that. If you dont mind i would like to print out a flyer to give to some local bike shops with some of the points you raise and the email contacts to give to customers.
I guess the councils dont have the advertising budgets of coca cola but i would never have heard about this unless someone posted it on this site. its a bit of a dilemna that councils spend a lot of money on such plan proposals and putthem out for comment to people who never know about it. I went into hornsby cycles and would you believe they didnt even know about it! You would think council would contact them at least....
Thanks for the letter template, I personalised it and emailed it in today. I hope this is getting some support as a MTB specific facility in Hornsby Shire would be great. I live in Normanhurst and there is only so many times you can go down and up Lane Cove NP. Another good option in riding distance from home would be great.
If you dont live in Hornsby Shire send a letter anyway and show your support.
Hawkeye - that is a brilliant example. My submission is away. Keep the ball rolling everyone
E-mail Sent.
Email has been sent!
Just sent mine off.
I had a chat to Anthony at Hornsby Council today and he told me that they have now received 23 emails. I am not very familiar with whether this is a lot or not, but Anthony was very thankful to those who have taken the time to write. Sometimes when they put something out for public opinion they may only get 1 or 2 replies. It sounds like if we could get another 20 emails in then we would be starting to provide a good case. So each response is a lot more significant than I realised (as I was assuming the number of responses may have been higher)
Another thing Anthony said (and Dana who is putting all the comments together) was that the quality of the emails is very high. Its not a pile of copied emails but a collection of emails which individually raise a broad range of strong arguments. He was very impressed by this and thought it would help put a strong case to council.
23 is quite a good response, but clearly, more would be *very* much better.
Local councils, despite our complaining about their approval of undesirable developments, bureaucracy, etc, do really have their ears open to community concerns and have a strong mission focus on improving the quality of life in the community for which they are responsible. But they won't just throw their money at things and hope. Proposals need to make compelling sense, and pass their well-honed bullshit filters.
I am very flattered by your kind responses to my sample email, but all I have done is package up how I see what we are wanting helps Council get what it wants with the most bang for its buck. We're already ahead because what we want does indeed make compelling sense, but we still need to do the selling because there are a lot of other competing voices that we need to be heard above.
A high numb er of original submissions raises confidence that what they are recieving has widely based and stongly felt community support and isn't just some individual or small group on a mission to pursue a narrow interest.
Glad to be able to help.
Its not a big issue but I've been told that it is actually best to send the emails to Dana and actually copy Anthony. I've been saying to do it the other way around. It's not a big issue but if anyone else takes the time to write an email please send it to Dana and copy Anthony.
Cheers
and congratulated them on their vision.
C'mon everybody. Only takes 10 minutes.
It will also help ease congestion on the beaches trails.
Email sent from me to
Phil
Good stuff Campbell....I for one would love to see the expansion of trails in Manly Dam...I'm sure I'm not alone
MK
another email sent,if they build it we will come
Nice work Campbell. Lets see if we can have an impact on their decision making. Cheers, Mick
Email Sent
Dylan
Great news, we could all do with some new trails - have forwarded it to a few friends as well.
I'm off on a field trip this weekend with Suzy (the head ranger at the Dam) so I'll bend her ear a little & find out if anything's in the pipeline for the Dam!?
Any feedback from riders passing through the section near the bowling club that we filled in recently with crushed sandstone greatly appreciated (I work for Manly council's bushland team - we maintain the track running past the footie pitch through Bantry Reserve out to the access road) not used that size crushed SS on trails before - it's certainly not a muddy lake anymore!
Regards
GP
Done
Thanks GP
As a regular user of the dam mtb track I really appreciate all the hard work you and others have done to maintain it...I just love it and feel very lucky to have it on my doorstep.
Regarding the work,I guess only time will tell how the crushed ss works out ...I am concerned at how the trackwork of that section over near Allambie will last as it seems to suffer badly in the wet...it doesnt seem to be hardening up enough to stop it from getting tracked out whereas the section after the carpark is rockhard and awesome.Also some of the drainage is a bit lethal and could possibly use a little reshaping..??
Would hate to see all your hardwork get trashed!!
Do you think it might be worthwhile mentioning to Suzy how awesome Stromlo Forest Park is after all the new work and whether it might be worthwhile investigating the maintenance/expansion of existing and /or future tracks under the guidance of someone like Glen Jacobs??..even possibly partially funded by Groundeffects "Slush fund" trail programme???..I dream about a park like facility with multiple tracks for different levels of rider...cafes by the water..showers etc...something that would encourage not just locals but people from all over Sydney and Australia to come to Manly Dam...make it a destination!!.. Just throwing some ideas around...I personally would love to be more involved in the future of MD...I think we've reached a critical stage in the evolution of Manly Dam as a mtb facility and we need to look at our requirements for the next 5-10 years and makes some important decisions ...somebody has to!!
My hands up...who's with me??
sincerely
Mike K
of Stromlo and its success....................
sort of type thing :S
did someone say dust??..I'm still hacking it up from the weekend....very dusty...but awesome!! some of the best riding around..canberra suddenly doesnt seem so far away...
Thanks for that Mike,
I'll find out if that section (Allambie) is our's or Warringah's. As for the drainage being a bit lethal - I'll have a look at it next time I'm up there. We're getting the section to the right of the track ready for an ecological burn - but I'll see what we can do to tidy that up a bit in the mean time. Do you mean the brush matting we've put there to the left of the track or the right?
Let me know more about the Groundeffects "slush fund" trail program.
We could only hope for (& dream a bit) about something like Stromolo - but having moved here from Whistler I know how much can be done with foresight & commitment from the MTB'ing community & local councils!
GP
Cool GP...have alwys wanted to visit canada...looks beautiful..
Check out Ground Effect on http://www.groundeffect.co.nz/advocacy.htm
The bits I'm referring to are the waterbars/drainage pits that run diagonally across the doubletrack section that was closed and refurbished recently....might be too much for some people but a little booter/lip on each side would allow one to pop over it without the massive gee-out you get at speed...anyway...happy to volunteer when the work starts...have shovel...can dig!!
And your totally right...mountainbikers as a group are passionate but largeley disorganised in this country...this needs to change if we want better facilities.
I agree that that section could do with some extra attention, it did get extremley boggy and slippery with a bit of rain the otherweek,i was quite surprised actually,your idea of a little booter would be nice, currently at speed the rear wheel gets hung up in the deeper ones.
I live local and like yourself have shovel...can dig!!
Another email sent
by me.
John
23 emails + a few later ones (I've sent mine) doesn't sound like a lot of people are interested in this considering there are over 1,000 NobMob users + visitors, and we've all got further friends who ride. Is it because you don't live in Hornsby Shire? Most of us don't live in the same council area as Ourimbah, Wiseman's Ferry, the Oaks or Canberra, but we still go there & ride.
It doesn't matter where you live - if we had an unreal track here I bet you'd come and ride it. These things don't get done by sitting back and being quiet..Who else out there is supporting the urban Sydney MTB community by suggesting building tracks at the moment? Not National Parks, nor your own council. Hornsby is a huge area and the potential, if there's seen to be enough interest, is there to build something fantastic.
There is a long way to go but this won't go anywhere if our 'competition' has a bigger voice than we do, and the competition is stiff because all of the following groups will be asking for land and funds - "A range of sports such as basketball netball, soccer, tennis and golf undertaken for pleasure, away from the club competitive environment in social / family settings, BMX..., walking for recreation, dog socialisation and exercise, skateboarding and in-line skating, horse riding trails, playgrounds."
So come on my fellow fat tyre friends - don't be one of the majority who do nothing and then whinge that there's nowhere to ride....
...if you have already sent an email to Hornsby Shire, but if you haven't spend 5 minutes and send one.
Wouldn't you love a network of single track just on the outskirts of Sydney - the ball is in your court and all it takes is 5 minutes.
+ one to Nat parks!
Email sent 15/10/08
email sent from me also.
sent mine
fingers crossed
Done. It would be great to see singletrack just up the road
Would save me the half hour drive to Manly
Kudos to all for their efforts! Lets hope we get enough support to get this over the line - Cheers Mothy
Vanina will send one too. I hope this goes ahead aye...
I have just sent my email as well!
Well done guys, Now we are talking!
wait and see.
Just out of interest has anyone received an email reply? I'm not expecting one, just curious.
Too pushed for time to write anything as well considered as Hawkeye's so it is short and to the point but hopefully they all count.
CB
but as usuall it didnt friggin work!!!!!!!!!!!!! i f.....g hate computers!!!!!!!!!!!
this is awesome support, nobmob is starting a fire!
One more sent for the cause
i'll try to find out some more numbers this week from council. hopefully the general apathy of Australians historically means that councils set the bar quite low! What im worried about though is that the other groups have more pensioners and retirees to represent them (bushwalkers and dog people particularly). These guys have time on their hands and one of their favourite activities is agitating council. I saw that Farkin has been giving it a go thanks to someone posting details there and hopefully word of mouth will get a late rally as the word spreads. lets hope the next big step is getting capital approval for someone like Glen Jacobs to help prepare a proposal to put to council.
Another thing I do know is that if it wasnt for the support of nobmob and farkin then the email numbers to council would have stayed in single figures.
Sent mine off this arvo, also trying to get 5 of my biking mates to throw something short together.
I sent one in this arvo too. Bit of a left of field story about:
-Man bush walks
-Man sees bike
-Man thinks bike would be good
-Man buys bike
-Man quits smoking
-Man's friends buy bike
-Man buys better bike
-Man's friends buy better bike
-Men are fit, ride together and then eat and drink (a shitload) together
-Men happy
-Woman not happy
-Trouble for man
-Everything normal
More professionally written of course, and it requests the building of XC trail.
The Council has received an extremely good response. Thanks to anyone who took the time to write!
I do not have numbers as they are still tallying them (a good sign). A summary is being prepared by Council. They are drawing upon the content in the emails provided to them. They have also been in contact with Glen Jacobs of World Trail. He is naturally willing to assist.
I understand that everyone who wrote to Council will receive a formal response (it's probably good that people have not received a response yet cause it means there are some good numbers slowing them down). This will spell out the next steps. At this point in time the next step is a council meeting where the councillors will vote for or against the various options in the Unstructured Recreation Plan. If anyone is able to attend the public meeting please do.
I am trying to get a group email together to keep those interested linked together. Those who have contacted me already are already on this list. But if anyone else wants to be included please let me know.
I'm new to this but I have been told that it would help to do specific lobbying of councillors. There are some new faces on council and so apparently this means they will be more willing to listen to people. I would welcome any advice on this issue (and if anyone by chance happens to know a councillor, please let me know).
HOWEVER, the biggest problem that the project is faced with is that the region to place the track has the Berowra Regional Valley running through it. This is co-managed with National Parks and Wildlife and so without their support the track will be cut short and a short track will not stop people making their own tracks elsewhere. I don't even know where to begin with NPWS so hopefully there are others ahead of me in this topic. If anyone knows the structure or how to approach NPWS, or someone within NPWS can you please let me know so I can chat to you about it. Or if someone from within NPWS reads this perhaps you could PM me.