UPDATE The BBC aired its pieces on Saturday 21 June, on the evening programmes Wales Today and S4C.  There’s also a report online, which you can read at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c14e821m6j2o .  Although most stakeholders responding to our concerns (well expressed by Trustee Dwynwen Belsey and Members Alun Davies and Sorcha Lewis) are reported merely saying what they usually do, we’re pleased to see that when the BBC spoke to Natural Resources Wales (whose Claerwen National Nature Reserve would be directly affected)  they expressed concerns about the potential environmental and habitat impact.   When will Powys County Council see the light?

Original post:

Thanks to member Alun Davies, on 9 June a BBC reporter and camera crew visited Claerwen Farm at the end of the contentious section of the Monks Trod which is threatened not only by illegal users of trail bikes but also, and more dangerously, by Powys County Council’s plans to ‘engineer’ the track surface to enable better trail bike access.  This misguided plan is based on the premise that if the track were well surfaced, trail bikers would stick to it rather than scrambling over the surrounding peatlands.  Law-abiding riders would, of course – but they are hardly the problem.  Anyone who hikes in the uplands encounters trail bike riders in places they have no legal right to be: for many, the thrill of trying difficult routes and machines ‘conquering’ wilderness is the point of the exercise.  We see them riding over footpaths and fords, down untracked hillsides and along tracks which are closed entirely.  All that surfacing the Trod, an historic pilgrimage route which should be dedicated to tranquillity and contemplation, would do is irreparably damage the Medieval engineering which underlies the surface in order to give this group of selfish people a wider range of delicate peatland to burn their energy off on.

The day was grey, lending an overall threatening air to the scene.  Trustee Dwynwen Belsey was interviewed, along with local farming member and naturalist Sorcha Lewis and the shepherd tenant of Claerwen, Glyndwr.  Here’s hoping that when the BBC’s programme is aired (we don’t yet have a date) it helps to convince Powys’ administration that whatever funds they intend to spend on their plan would be far better applied improving a road that is of practical benefit to locals, not scramblers!