present

CafesideMTB has been founded by 6 local mountain bike enthusiasts in order to re-open the Cafeside site as an official and staffed pay-to-ride trail centre.

We have registered ourselves as a Community Interest Company (CIC) to reflect that we want to run the site for the benefit of the community and the area, and re-invest as we grow to the advantage of all.

We continue to work with Forestry England to maintain the existing trails for when we re-open the site to the public. (Important: the trails remain closed to the public until we officially re-open with our own insurance etc., please don't jeopardise the future of CafesideMTB by attempting to ride or build on the site at this time!)

We have now signed and begun a 10-year lease with Forestry England for the Cafeside site. We have our liability insurance in place to cover building, volunteers, staff, riders and the other site visitors. Please don't turn up with your bikes quite yet though!

We will soon be getting our dig days going again - watch this space and our Facebook page for more updates very soon.

In order for us to run the CafesideMTB site as an official trail centre we submitted a full planning application to Teignbridge District Council for the site. This was seeking planning permission for a car park, start ramps, and for the existing and future mountain bike trails.

As part of this planning application we submitted a full ecological impact assessment compiled by Richard Green Ecology in order to ensure that we are protecting and enhancing the biodiversity of the site. They have also presented us with a list of best practices in order to minimise the impact on the ecology of the site going forwards, which we will use in combination with Forestry England's own ecology guidelines.

Following a request from TDC to remove our application due to issues arising from changes TDC requested we make during the validation process, we have now submitted a new CLUED and Permitted Development application in order to get change of use and permission for building and maintaining of trails on the site.

Unfortunately, this initial application was refused after a significant delay; Rather than go through the prolonged appeals process, we have worked with Base Planning Consultants to revise and strengthen our application and this has now been re-submitted to Teignbridge District Council.

Please see our planning updates page for more information and updates!