Lady Cannings: Update

It’s almost a year since we launched the Lady Cannings Project and five years since the idea of putting a trail in the woods was first proposed. Even building on the experience of previous projects, the past year has been something of an education!

One of the biggest things we have learnt is the fantastic support from mountain bikers in the city (and around the country too!) not only from the donations to the fund, which has been pretty substantial and is currently sitting at just over £12,500 at the moment. But also the messages of support and offers of help to dig and maintain the trail too. We have also had a lot of interest and support from the MTB (and local) press too. Turns out that this is the first project of its kind and a great model for mountain bikers getting a more trails during a time when bigger funding options are squeezed.

We have always been in the project for the long haul and we always expected that things would take longer than planned. As the project has evolved and through discussions with the landowners, the project has become more substantial and more costly; so the process has still been a little slower than expected. But ultimately that means that the project will go ahead and will work as well as it possibly can for the current build  and will also offer the best use of the woods in the future.

So where are we now….?

Currently we are looking at a build starting in September of this year. We have rather short windows in which we can build in and are limited in the spring by the nesting bird season. So after the rather wet winter we have had so far, it has been decided that we are going to postpone the spring build as the wet weather will cut down on our potential build time. So we will be all set to go at the end of the summer. Apologies to all that were looking forward to a summer of sweet singletrack in the woods.

Can we do anything in the meantime…?

Yes; we are going to be running a series of volunteer days in the woods in order to prepare the ground for the digging, in order to maximise the time available for the trail builders. We will be announcing the full details of these days soon.

We will continue to update you on where we are with the project and how we going with funding and what you can do too. This is as much your project as it is ours.

Thanks

Lastly, though definitely not least; thanks to everyone who has donated over the past year, the response has been fantastic.

Donations

We continue to accept donations and welcome approaches from business too.

So how do you donate? You can either fire across your money via internet banking to the Ride Sheffield account using the following details:

RIDE SHEFFIELD 40-31-02 91574205

Account is with HSBC.

Or you can donate via Paypal. The address for Paypal payments is ridesheffield@gmail.com

If you have any further enquiries, please cotact us at ridesheffield@gmail.com

Thanks

RS