Paid access to off road riding?

CrazyMare

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I'm just trying to information gather as to how existing paid access schemes are run.

IF you pay to access off road riding can you advise me of the following

Do you pay yearly, pay monthly or pay as you go?

If you pay as you go, is it a pay meter or paid online, or something different?

How are you identified as having paid your access fee whether that be yearly or pay as you go?

How large is the area of off road riding?

What is the yearly fee, monthly fee or pay as you ride fee?

Many thanks in advance
 

The Fuzzy Furry

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Windsor Park info here: Here
I havent had a pass for about 10 years, it's a bit pricey, especially as lots of cycles, dog walkers and nd runners.

I prefer the likes of farm rides. Local one has a 5.5 mile hilly route with intermittent xc fences (all with no need to jump if you dont want to). There is also an additional 3 mile loop with no fences to jump, if you cross a small road, which is about half way round/3 miles in, if you want.
Its £25 a visit, or £150 for 6 months and £250 a year. Cycles, pedestrians and dogs not permitted. No road work. Sign in on arrival, sign out on leaving.Owners keep an eye open as it's a working farm, open 9 to 4 for 7 days a week (have to leave course by 5pm unless pre arranged). Private parking, no public access anywhere.
 
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pixie27

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I have two areas of paid off road riding near me. One is Windsor Great Park, goes without saying how big and amazing that is! I think (and stand to be corrected as never bought access for the Park) that it’s £250 a year and you wear a headband to identify you as a paid rider.

The other is much smaller but still has plenty of big hills, varying terrain, equestrian use only. Great ground, lots of canter/gallop spots. Few xc jumps too. That was I think £120 a year though as the year progresses it gets cheaper. You wear a hat band and give your vehicle reg/have a parking permit. You can also do ‘pay as you ride’ which I think is £10 a go and you give them your details. It’s a busy place so must be hard to police. Well worth the money though!
 
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Follysmum

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I use one which has dedicated trails,tracks and field margins it is a farm estate £12.50 each time
safe car park at the estate with water facilities.

Another one I use is £15 per time or £250 per year for 8miles with Xc jumps
 

Becca-84

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We have forestry commission land, permits run by TROT (Toll Rises Off-road Trust). We pay £90 a year and get sent a hat band and membership card in a different colour each year. The permit allows us access to other forestry commission land as well, not just our local woods.
 

PeterNatt

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..… and we have got miles and miles of free off road riding routes because we have a network of public rights of way of bridleway and byway status which will be there for future generations of riders to continue to use thanks to the hard work of numerous people that have got them placed on the definitive map of Hertfordshire. (The definitive map is the map where all public rights of way are recorded within a county).
 
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Ceifer

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I have two areas of paid off road riding near me. One is Windsor Great Park, goes without saying how big and amazing that is! I think (and stand to be corrected as never bought access for the Park) that it’s £250 a year and you wear a headband to identify you as a paid rider.

The other is much smaller but still has plenty of big hills, varying terrain, equestrian use only. Great ground, lots of canter/gallop spots. Few xc jumps too. That was I think £120 a year though as the year progresses it gets cheaper. You wear a hat band and give your vehicle reg/have a parking permit. You can also do ‘pay as you ride’ which I think is £10 a go and you give them your details. It’s a busy place so must be hard to police. Well worth the money though!

I had a pass for Windsor Great Park about 5 years ago. It was a tag you had on your saddle.

To be honest I thought it was a rip off.
It was about £250.00 maybe a little more and as mentioned above full of people with dogs, on bikes, pushchairs and of course horse drawn carriages. If it was sunny it was absolute carnage. In addition Certain routes were closed for filming tv shows and films or other events. I also stumbled across a random group of people doing some kind of war re-enactment. Which was great fun with my WB who had only ever done road work in the past.
I was also nervous that if you came off and your horse did a runner it could have been catastrophic. Unless you went in the deer park where it was enclosed but you could stumble on a large herd of deer.
Maybe I’m being a misery. But it certainly wasn’t the place to go if your horse wasn’t well behaved and used to busy areas.
 

Suechoccy

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Epping Forest (Corporation of London) covers 2500 hectares and has a massive network of horse riding routes and some free range riding too. Riding is available on quarterly or daily basis. Charges here: https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/thi...r-information/licences/Pages/horseriding.aspx Day-parking for horse boxes is at Chingford Plain carpark and the passes can be bought from adjacent golf club office.

Thetford Forest (Forestry Commission) is free to ride in and has massive network of horse riding routes. Safe parking (so your vehicle doesn't get nicked while you ride) is available at a couple of places - Widehams Farm near Bury St Edmunds charge £10 daily per vehicle, there's also a place at Santon Downham whose name I can't remember, who also charge £10 per vehicle. Both nice places to park with toilets.

There's TROT rides on the Dengie peninsula in Essex, I don't know how much.

I know of one farmer in Cambridgeshire who has a private toll ride scheme on his farm margins but I don't have details of costs or amount of routes.

Wimpole Hall (National Trust) used to do a day pass per rider for parking on the wide grass verge at/outside their property and giving riders access to a length of permissive bridleway which then links into the public bridleway network.

At other National Trust properties with public bridleway networks alongside, I've parked, displaying my National Trust membership car sticker in my window, parking discretely and choosing my parking time to be not when such a property is full of visitors, and gone for a nice ride and then bought a tea and cake in their cafe afterwards too.

Holkham Hall in Norfolk charge £12 for day parking in Queen Anne/Elizabeth Avenue from where you ride through the pines onto Holkham Beach. (went there last Friday, superb!)
 
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Leo Walker

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..… and we have got miles and miles of free off road riding routes because we have a network of public rights of way of bridleway and byway status which will be there for future generations of riders to continue to use thanks to the hard work of numerous people that have got them placed on the definitive map of Hertfordshire. (The definitive map is the map where all public rights of way are recorded within a county).

You are clearly much luckier than me then!
 

Orangehorse

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TROT was originally developed to improve everyday hacking, rather than being a "destination" like a farm ride where you turn up and pay. The idea is that you pay an annual subscription so you can use ANY TROT ride, although the money mostly goes to the nearest route, and it depends on whether you can actually use it every day-ish for local hacking, or you have to box up to get there, the latter being the lower rate (unless the rules have changed lately).

There are several farm rides, toll routes scattered all over the country, usually arranged by one big estate and they have their own rules.

The idea of having routes over land owned by several different landowners started in East Anglia, then was developed further in Kent, where the roads are very busy, and narrow so extremely hazardous for riding. And this was after many years spent researching and opening up all the available bridlepaths. What I found when I was involved is that it MUST be rider-led, where there is a demand. If a ride is set up where only a couple of people want to use it, it won't generate enough income for the landowners and they won't put in the work to keep it in good condition so it ,becomes a bit of a hassle rather than generating income. Actually I found that the landowners thought it was a good idea, it was getting the money out of riders that was the hard part, many felt that they simply shouldn't have to pay to ride their horse over farmland.

There are routes in Kent of up to 20 miles incorporating bridlepaths, quiet lanes, farm land, downland to create pleasant rides. There is nothing nicer than riding inside a field, behind the hedge rather than out on the road with lorries and cars thundering past. TROT also administer the Forestry schemes in some places.

People can shout all they like about it being permissive, but sometimes you just have to find the best solution. How much does a Dressage class entry cost? If hacking is your thing, then surely some payment is worth it? The local farmers who were in the Permissive Bridlepath scheme under Countryside Stewardship did not keep the rides open when the payment stopped, despite being asked.
 

cauda equina

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I realise this is an old thread, but -

A local farmer was considering putting in a farm ride - horsebox parking, washdown area, possibly stabling, so catering for people who want to make a day (or more) of it.
He's now having second thoughts, mainly (I think) due to worries about keeping the going good if large groups turn up in all weathers.

The sort of scheme that @Orangehorse mentions above ie to improve everyday hacking rather than a 'destination' ride might be an acceptable alternative for him, and I'm interested in finding out more about how such schemes are run.
Any information would be gratefully received, thank you!
 

Annagain

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Stockland Lovell in Somerset (working farm and equestrian centre) offer hacking across their headlands for £13 a time or I think there's an annual fee for people in the local area. It might be worth asking them how they manage it. We hack once or twice when we're at camp there. I've been there 5 or 6 times now and still haven't exhausted the routes or done the same route more than twice (and only that one because it's nice and short to warm up for a lesson) . They close the routes in bad weather but I think it has to be pretty bad for them to be closed (our first year they were closed as it had rained for 6 weeks solid and we had gale force 12 winds). They just post on their website if they're closed but a smaller concern could do the same on Facebook .
 

Kat

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I'm really put off by annual passes, unless they are within easy hacking distance. If I am going to the trouble of boxing out to hack I want to go to different places and different routes.

We have some private parkland but access is included in our livery for liveries only.
 

Surbie

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I realise this is an old thread, but -

A local farmer was considering putting in a farm ride - horsebox parking, washdown area, possibly stabling, so catering for people who want to make a day (or more) of it.
He's now having second thoughts, mainly (I think) due to worries about keeping the going good if large groups turn up in all weathers.

The sort of scheme that @Orangehorse mentions above ie to improve everyday hacking rather than a 'destination' ride might be an acceptable alternative for him, and I'm interested in finding out more about how such schemes are run.
Any information would be gratefully received, thank you!

Have a look at Woolgars Farm, which I've been to a few times and love. They offer a yearly pass as well as one-off fees and is really well run. https://www.woolgarsfarm.com/

The other annual pass near me is for Prince's Coverts - it's very expensive and the land floods in winter so is largely unusable for several months at a time. BUT for no scrambler bikes, few dog walkers if you time it right and linked off-road access to other commons it might be worth it, given how busy the local commons have all become.
 

teapot

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I'm really put off by annual passes, unless they are within easy hacking distance. If I am going to the trouble of boxing out to hack I want to go to different places and different routes.

We have some private parkland but access is included in our livery for liveries only.

Surely that depends on where the annual pass is based? Windsor Great Park does annual passes and you'd never get bored.
 

Kat

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Surely that depends on where the annual pass is based? Windsor Great Park does annual passes and you'd never get bored.

But why not offer a day pass?

Many places don't have many and varied routes and even if they do you might only be able to travel there a couple of times a year due to distance or availability of transport or wanting to also go to other places or just other commitments.
 

AFB

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I don't think it's been mentioned here but I have only scan-read so apologies if I'm duplicating but Prestwold have a decent scheme. Annual or day passes, different coloured bibs for each to ID. They have a FB page with a lot of info.
 

teapot

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But why not offer a day pass?

Many places don't have many and varied routes and even if they do you might only be able to travel there a couple of times a year due to distance or availability of transport or wanting to also go to other places or just other commitments.

Who knows when the Crown Estate is involved.
 
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chaps89

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If the farmer is worried about too many people at once or the ground not standing up to it, it must be easy enough now to have an app or online booking system, so numbers could be policed/controlled/limited as required?
Woolgars linked to above is fairly unique so far as I can tell, as you can just turn up any time between set hours and go, but I know they do have people turn up and not pay!!! They roll the headlands that you ride around as necessary, but the in summer they're busy, winter months it's rare to see people there so the ground holds up pretty well.
Somewhere like Cholsey farm which is also mentioned on this thread requires you to book in advance which does seem alot easier to manage from their perspective. I think alot of their routes are also over public bridleways etc which is even easier for them as no land management involved from their perspective, more the provision of maps/safe parking/wash off and wc areas.
 

QuantockHills

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Stockland Lovell in Somerset (working farm and equestrian centre) offer hacking across their headlands for £13 a time or I think there's an annual fee for people in the local area. It might be worth asking them how they manage it. We hack once or twice when we're at camp there. I've been there 5 or 6 times now and still haven't exhausted the routes or done the same route more than twice (and only that one because it's nice and short to warm up for a lesson) . They close the routes in bad weather but I think it has to be pretty bad for them to be closed (our first year they were closed as it had rained for 6 weeks solid and we had gale force 12 winds). They just post on their website if they're closed but a smaller concern could do the same on Facebook .
and I think they normally close the routes at the end of October until March.....?
 

cauda equina

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If the farmer is worried about too many people at once or the ground not standing up to it, it must be easy enough now to have an app or online booking system, so numbers could be policed/controlled/limited as required?
Woolgars linked to above is fairly unique so far as I can tell, as you can just turn up any time between set hours and go, but I know they do have people turn up and not pay!!! They roll the headlands that you ride around as necessary, but the in summer they're busy, winter months it's rare to see people there so the ground holds up pretty well.
Somewhere like Cholsey farm which is also mentioned on this thread requires you to book in advance which does seem alot easier to manage from their perspective. I think alot of their routes are also over public bridleways etc which is even easier for them as no land management involved from their perspective, more the provision of maps/safe parking/wash off and wc areas.
He was planning to have online booking so yes it should be possible to police it
But just as people at Woolgars turn up and not pay I expect sometimes a party of eg 2 book and then 6 turn up!

The farm is on lightish land with very little in the way of existing tracks so his concern is justified.
I'm still hoping that something like a subscription scheme will be feasible and financially viable
 

Annagain

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and I think they normally close the routes at the end of October until March.....?

Nov - Feb I think (so possibly same thing if you mean end Oct - start March!) but weather dependent. One of the instructors we have there was telling us they managed to keep it open a fail while longer than usual last winter - or rather open it earlier this Spring, but I wonder if that was because nobody could box to it so it was only local people who could hack there using it so it held up better.
 

Rowreach

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I wish! There is a lovely place reasonably close, which is NT, so you pay an annual (or daily) amount, and then either need to be a NT member or pay the day entry each time. I used to live very close to it and used it several times a week, and it was well worth the money. Now I'm too far away and only go about once a year.

In NI there are no bridleways. We are totally reliant on the likes of Forest Services and big landowners to provide off road permit riding. Plus there is some beach access for the lucky ones near enough to reach it.

I ride on the roads and it is getting worse and worse, almost daily. And my horse is an absolute saint in traffic. I'd pay anything for somewhere quiet to go.
 
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