Advice on securing land for trails

Hi all. I sit on the committee for a small MTB club, we currently have 83 members. I was hoping to get some advice from others who have been in a similar position who have been successful in acquiring designated land for riding. Currently we have one designated area. There are other trail networks which are essentially illegal and on areas which are all marked for development now. Any thoughts and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
 

bikesarefun

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Hi all. I sit on the committee for a small MTB club, we currently have 83 members. I was hoping to get some advice from others who have been in a similar position who have been successful in acquiring designated land for riding. Currently we have one designated area. There are other trail networks which are essentially illegal and on areas which are all marked for development now. Any thoughts and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

It's tough, and a lot of the time it comes down to idiosyncrasies of the individual employees of relevant land managers. Best place to start is finding out more about the people, and their motivations/concerns. Then build a business case that plays on those.

Unless it's National Parks or a government body. In that case, there are enough policy documents and success stories around to provide a decent springboard.
 
Our sanctioned area is actually in a national park so we have a good relationship with them. It's other land we would like to have access to.
 

pink poodle

気が狂っている男
look up your local real estate agent...buy a block of land...there is a lot of cash to be made in private bike tracks!

There is a fairly big thread on here somewhere with some good info in it about this. Good luck. Also see what connections your 83 members have. you never know who might work in a place that owns a big pile of unusable land....
 

WarbyD

Likes Dirt
Just posting in here so I can keep track of this.. Seeing you're in NT, I would love to be able to bring my bike up when I come to visit our yard or office in Darwin (unfortunately, no land available that I can help you with unless you feel like flying to Wadeye to ride...) and get out for some trail time!
 

Nerf Herder

Wheel size expert
Numbers count, even if it's not real ... I know several groups that started with one person that kept describing the group of one as "We" and "our group" and the MTB community ...

If you already have sustainable trails built / walked / ridden in ... And they obviously arent a rutted / eroded mess through critically endangered ground orchid or some such ... And you can manage to get some council staffers on side ... And get them to propose something to council, quoting the vast number of LOCAL riders that vote interested in community volunteer programes to maintain these mysteriously forming trails ... Then viola ... council sanctioned MTB trail NETWORK.

Make friends with the local enviros ... Learn where they think the important parcels of public land are from a conservation point of view. If they aren't militant, then pick the most degraded parcels and focus on potential rehab ... To offset new trail ... This is hard, but yiu can get some good allies here.

From memory I think NT has a jail works program ... FREE fracking labour ... Get the new TRails / advocacy coordinator at mtba to organise an imba training day ... Register your club and get some grant funding from mtba as well ... Use that money to influence federal members and local council into a matching game to boost funds (not bribes, by to show community involvement) ... Get the local indigenous kids involved to make your project that much more attractive and news worthy even ... Merida have given bikes away to support indigenous cycling programs ... In Sydney anyway.

Hit up the local clubs, rotary, RSL or other gambling funded organisations

Sorry , the above us a bit of a brain dump ... Sorry if not coherent ... In short, get numbers, be organised, get or attract funding use volunteer labour to build where practical ... Good luck
 

GeurieMTB

Likes Dirt
Hi all. I sit on the committee for a small MTB club, we currently have 83 members. I was hoping to get some advice from others who have been in a similar position who have been successful in acquiring designated land for riding. Currently we have one designated area. There are other trail networks which are essentially illegal and on areas which are all marked for development now. Any thoughts and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
One of the keys is to consider tenure - whose land is it and what's the purpose of its current designation. Some land will never be available for recreation (military, Council Operational land etc). Appropriate land tenure and access agreements is usually essential for accessing public funding (ie grants) too.

Personally I think private land is way too risky for clubs, your hard work is at the whim of someone whos best interests may be served by selling or developing the land at a future point. I always try to find land that's in public ownership/management close to the population your looking to service. What sort of trails you want to build is critical in land choices too of course, no point accessing flat public land for DH ;). Then think about scale, how long do you want the trails to be? That will dictate how large a parcel you need to source approval to use. For example one of our local trails is 4.5km long and very tight, and that takes most of a 20ha reserve.

If you have a number of parcels that would suit your needs and theyre under different land managers then you need to start selling MTBing to those land managers, you may well find some sympathy in some agencies, youll also likely run into issues, insurance is often raised so make sure you have answers before you step through the door.

When you do meet with land managers be clear in what it is you want, show examples (preferably local) of what you want and how it can work, use IMBA guidelines to provide credibility, describe your large membership (as mentioned above) and the recreational and health benefits (if public agency), preferably have some generic concept maps, but be clear that your flexible, nothing worse for a land manager than someone proposing to build recreational trails through areas of significance (and you may very well not know that a parcel is significant, therefore be flexible with your ideas)

You may need to abandon some of your existing illegal trails but starting with a fresh slate can be a good thing, particularly if you get security of tenure as a result.

Agency approaches/attitudes do vary across agencies and states. Sometimes this can be attributed to conflicting community pressures, ie its often difficult to get approval for trail development within urban areas, whereas rural/regional clubs often have much more amenable agencies to deal with, they want to get people onto theyre ground rather than fighting to keep them off.

And final thought, offer something in return. Offer to undertake clean Up Australia Day on that (or nearby) sites, do weed control works, set yourselves up as a bushcare group (which also builds trail), put up some cash for signage etc if you have it - contribute and make the land managers life easier, rather than harder.

Happy to offer more detail on any of the above (yes I work in public land management ;))
 
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