According to local riders, Derbyshire Council appear intent on turning Rushup Edge into a smooth, wide, concrete-esque pavement.

Derbyshire Council have submitted plans to begin work on something called ‘Chapel en le Frith Byway 144’. You may better know this track as Rushup Edge. An excellently challenging bedrock track.

Local riders are not overly impressed with the plans.

Check out the video above from Bike Garage that neatly explains the whole sorry story thus far.

Local MTB access campaign outlet Keeper of the Peak are one of the leading voices in opposition tot he council’s proposals. There is a copy of the KotP’s letter to the council on the website.

Letter from the Keeper of the Peak

Dear Derbyshire County Council

I write in response to the request for comments on the plans for Chapel en le Frith Byway 144. Keeper of the Peak is dedicated to mountain bike advocacy and supported by over 2200 followers. This number has grown considerably since the previous consultation.

While these plans are an improvement over earlier iterations; with the exception of the work suggested to section one to alleviate flooding and pooling on the path, the majority of these works are a hugely over engineered, unrequested and unnecessary expense.

Key points:

The route should be returned to its pre-aborted work state before any work commences i.e. removed all the material that has been placed thus far.

Your proposed approach in sections 2 and 3 of type 1 aggregate and stone slabs on concrete will result in the type one washing away and a stone plinth sitting proud down the centre of the track. This absolutely does not mean that slab work for the whole track is preferable. The pre-‘repaired’ material placed on the path should be removed as the original surface was sufficient

Washed off aggregate used will fill the proposed drainage pool

Concrete has NO PLACE in this environment.

Stone should be hand pitched, and there are only two or three locations that this is necessary – primarily at the steepest of bedrock step sections.

All that is required is a small amount of hand-placed stone pitching on the deepest of natural bedrock steps.

Derbyshire County Council is wasting thousands and thousands of pounds on this unnecessary and unrequested work.

Bedrock present is a perfectly suited surface for drainage and has been for years. As I stated in my previous response, the approach taken by the Derbyshire County Council Rights of Way team throughout this ‘consultation’ has been baffling, bloody minded and seemingly, wilfully dismissive of measured, educated and balanced responses. Remember, we are not simply a bunch of people on bikes. We are experts in a range of fields who know not only the best approaches to this kind of work in a geological and construction sense, but also the various legal and bureaucratic steps required to enact a plan of this kind. Or indeed to stop it. Help from this knowledge base has been offered and ignored by DCC already.

Do not wait four years again to act based on this consultation.

Regards

KoftheP