Days left to save Peak District’s best trail riding route

Motorcyclists have until June 28 to object to plans to ban motorised vehicles from the best green lane in the Peak District.

The Peak District National Park Authority is proposing a permanent traffic ban on Chapel Gate, a two-mile route through moorland from near Chapel En Le Frith towards Edale, Derbyshire.

A spokesman for the Trail Riders Fellowship said: “Chapel Gate is currently the best driveable route in the Peak District. We need to muster as many objections as possible.”

The PDNPA says it has a duty to protect the route.

The TRF says the Authority is discriminating against vehicles users, who are already limited to 2% of the 3000 miles of pathway in the Peak District. 

An experimental order banning trail bikes and 4x4s from the route was overturned by the High Court last year.

Over 4000 objections were raised to an earlier proposal to permanently ban vehicles from two routes on Long Causeway and the Roych. 

A TRF spokesman said: “We are aiming to have over 6000 objections for Chapel Gate.
“The PDNPA is acting in a discriminatory fashion by singling out recreational vehicle users in this way.”

Jim Dixon, chief executive of the PDNPA, said: “Chapel Gate is an important recreational route… And, it’s our statutory responsibility to protect the national park from adverse impact on its natural beauty, which includes the landscape, wildlife and heritage, and on the amenity value for people to enjoy it.”

Objects can be made online here.

The TRF spokesman said: “Objections do not need to be long or technical but will carry more weight if you give good reasons.  Please make sure you mark your correspondence as an objection.”