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New Forest rider and pony (CC licensed by iNew Forest:Flickr)Cyclists urged to avoid parts of the New Forest during pony round-ups
The Verderers of the New Forest have urged cyclists and walkers to stay away from areas where pony round-ups are being carried out over the coming months. ‘Drifts’ are carried out regularly between mid-August and early November and one clash next weekend has already resulted in route changes to the Wiggle New Forest 100 sportive.
Martin Barden from UK Cycling Events, who organise the sportive, said: “We have been aware of the drifts since the beginning of the year and have worked with the Verderers to ensure there is no clash with our event.”
Another clash this Sunday will see the start of the Burley Lawn drift postponed due to the Orchid charity ride which would have been in the area at the same time.
For those planning on visiting the New Forest independently, dates and locations of drifts are published on the Verderers’ website on a weekly basis.
Sue Westwood, Clerk to the Verderers of the New Forest, said: “We always ask members of the public, be they on foot, bicycle, or on horseback, to stay away from drift areas if at all possible because we always seek to minimise the possibility of any interaction between running ponies and the riders who are on the drift and people not involved in the drift. The fewer people there are in the area of a drift, the more efficient and successful the drift will be.”
“In order to reduce the risk of accidents, the police assist us with directing traffic. Cyclists and walkers are obviously more vulnerable than people in vehicles, but vehicles are obviously more hazardous to the ponies and those on horseback who are trying to round them up. It is always advisable to keep away from the area of the drift, just for the few hours in the morning when the ponies are being driven to the pound.”
In January, the board of the New Forest National Park Authority voted to approve the New Forest Cycling Events Charter. Drawn up by its Cycling Liaison Group, the charter was intended to be a set of guidelines that organisers would voluntarily follow. However, there was opposition from cycling event organisers for the requirement that cycling events in the forest be limited to 1,000 riders with entrants obliged to wear identifying numbers front and back.
UK Cycling Events, which organises the Wiggle New Forest 100, said that it would not be following the recommendation for a 1,000 rider limit. It is instead continuing to work with the district council's Safety Advisory Group to safely run its events.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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20 comments
Wikipedia says that 'the New Forest Verderers still sit in open court most months and members of the public may address them on matters pertaining to the New Forest'. So can't people just go along and ask the questions?
Anyway, the Verderers website says that "For their own safety, members of the public are urged to avoid the area of the drift on the planned dates.", so it seems to me that if the Drift is so dangerous then the roads really need to be closed completely on those dates.
Why doesn't a journalist from a cycling website contact the Verderers and ask them for an interview?
That is what journalists are supposed to do.
Do you not get bored hanging around a cycling website purely to make up nonsense about people being held hostage by bike rides, ill relatives and the monstrous behaviour of cyclists?
I really don't understand where you'd get the time or energy from to do something so utterly worthless with your life.
Seeing as my mother in law died last Christmas I do not think that is making up stories about I'll relatives. Do you?
Still if my presence and exercising of my right to have an opinion makes splutter over your breakfast perhaps it is all worthwhile.
Lastly plenty of people have moaned about the Verderers but no one appears to have asked them why they are being so difficult. Perhaps as I said the hosts could ask them.
Your presence and works of fiction hardly have anyone spluttering over anything, I just struggle to comprehend why people have so little going on in their lives they have to get their Walter Mitty on through the internet to get some satisfaction. Try doing something in the real world, have you ever considered riding a bicycle?
The Verderers hate everyone else apart from other Verderers. They consider the NF to be their own private fiefdom, and unfortunately to an extent they are correct. They are in close cahoots with the National Park Authority, and have repeatedly proven themselves anti-cycling in all its forms. For the last three years running they have deliberately announced or changed drift dates and locations to bugger up cycling events, which they know cannot be re-routed easily with all the admin faff. On the other hand, they can choose where and when to round up ponies at the drop of a hat.
In this case they have all but succeeded in driving the event from the New Forest.
I hate to be the voice of reason on here but...
These drifts take place every year and have been doing so since before sportives were invented! Only 11 of the 34 pre planed drifts will take place on a Sunday. They even rescheduled one of the drifts so that it didn't interfere with a sportive/charity cycle ride!
As a lot of the commentators jump on their high horses (pun intended) when there are stories of locals complaining about closed road cycle events (myself included) think the shoes on the other foot now.
The Verderers have persistently changed their dates to clash with the sportive dates. This is a well-established strategy to fuck over the event organisers and drive them out. The routes take considerable planning and signage preparation, food stop planning etc. Having Verderers change drift dates even a month or more out seriously screws up event plans. There is NO REASON other than bloodyminded bigotry to change a drift date to clash with a bike ride.
And your reference to closed-road events is irrelevant - the roads are not closed, for the drift or the Sportive. If the roads were also closed to pedestrians and motorists, then I'd agree, who are cyclists to complain. In this case, the cyclists are being squarely targeted by the Verderers. I genuinely believe they'd love a pony or ten to be injured or killed, if it added grist to their cyclist demonisation mill. These people are mental. And as they are 'elected' and operate under a royal warrant, there's SFA anyone can do about it.
KiwiMike as much as I agree with your sentiment, you've clearly never seen a drift in action. The ponies will unlikely get hurt much but riders could very seriously or even killed. Imagine a herd of 50 horses galloping at full speed while being chased by a dozen or so men on horseback trying to get them all into a pen. It's bloody dangerous. And yes the verderers probably would still run it regardless if the danger.
I trust people participating in a bike ride to have the intelligence to not ride their bikes headfirst into a bunch of galloping horses. And if a Verderer, on a horse, deliberately herds them onto a public road without checking first, or willfully into members of the public going about their lawful business, then they should be as an organisation, shut down and the individuals prosecuted.
The roads are not being closed, to cyclists, walkers or cars. The forest is not being closed - I can go cycling or walking with my family. If there was serious, credible risk of harm to the public it should be done with the forest shut down.
I do not buy into pandering to bigots. Nor should anyone else.
Have done this event in the past but the route now is a joke. The shortest distance doesn't get inside the national park for more than a mile or two as far as I can see from a glance at the map.
Won't be visiting the New Forest again unless these Verderers stop being so incredibly uncooperative. Ridiculous that they suddenly create a clash with such little notice so log after routes are consulted on and agreed. Local business owners need to start applying some pressure to them to plan ahead and work with other stakeholders in the national park.
This.
Looks to me that Wiggle could be done under the Trades Description Act (or whatevs) - a 'New Forest' bike ride that hardly goes into the New Forest at all.
Personally I say f'em - The organiser should have stuck to its guns and run the event as-is. If ponies then get hurt, it's the Verderer's fault for deliberately choosing a date that clashes.
Why play their game? It's only going to incentivise them to do so again, and again, and again...
Avoiding the Drifts when on foot, on a bike or on horse or even when driving tbh is good advice.
But I completely agree with other on here that the Verderers are creating clashes on purpose just to be difficult and make a point. The sportives are booked months in advance with routes published they don't need to clash at all, its been done on purpose to be difficult.
This weekend the New Forest Marathon is on (which I hope to do myself next year), this has some closed roads and diversions in place and is even going to cause the New Forest open top tourist bus to have to be diverted. Yet I've seen no negative press about this at all. thousands of people coming to the forest, closed roads and diversions is surely a greater disruption than the open road sportives which frankly have never cause me a problem or significant delays certainly nothing on the scale of the disruption cause by the New Forest show, lots of special events at Beaulieu which cause traffic queues, or just about any peak day in the summer holidays around Lyndhurst or Brock'.
Logical discussion is beyond these Bigots! You can't have a sensible conversation on the subject with them, it's pointless, a waste of breath.
Oh btw I'm a NF resident of a small village which many sportives have come through over the years. I've yet to see a problem myself.
There exist other National Parks and other attractive areas where the inhabitants are currently less vehemently and myopically anti cycling than these winkers. A complete boycott by cyclists would concentrate a few minds I suspect.
The problem is that boycotting is exactly what the verderers want and it punishes the wrong residents of the New Forest. Local businesses welcome cyclists and are not part of this bigotry.
It makes sense for people to be aware of the drift routes and try to avoid the areas for everyone's safety. I don't think the Verderers help themselves through their own PR though.
The quote above from the clerk talks about the efficiency and success of the drift i.e. all about them, why didn't they communicate the need to keep the public, those involved in the drift and the animals safe. This difference could help in diffusing simmering feelings against the Verderers "them and us" attitude.
In other news, the forest foke, wellcome as many motorists as can possibly fit on the road to smash into as many pony as they possibility can.
The new forest is less than 10 miles from my door and sooner they turn the place into car park as the locals appear to want the better.
In plain English the Verderers statement can be read as "it's our New Forest so p*ss orf!" Is it really merely coincidence that there's been a late significant change to the route of the New Forest 100 Sportive on the 15th Sept? It now doesn't go anywhere near Burley, Brockenhurst or Boldrewood, and doesn't really venture inside of the New Forest at all. Long term it's only local businesses that stand to suffer if the NIMBY's continue to go unchallenged.
Although I'm sure there are a few NF residents who feel that way the huge majority of those I speak to are perfectly fine about cyclists. In fact I'd go so far as to say it's the recent arrivals and the second home owners who make the most noise.
The drifts are a necessary part of forest management and are rooted in the distant past. Most of the participants are unpaid volunteers and family members who just want to get it over with in peace. Most of them will have seen accidents involving ponies and, believe me, it's not a pretty thing to witness.
I ride the forest regularly, my last trip was three weeks ago, and I am more than willing to organise my route to avoid hassle. Why wouldn't I be?
Having lived in the New Forest since birth I am entirely appreciative of the place commoning has in our community and it's essential place in shaping and maintaining the local landscape. However, it is now apparent that the Verderers are using drifts as a tool to be as obstructive as possible to cyclists and cycling events in particular. This is not the first time a drift location has been announced to take place along a chosen cycle event route with less than a fortnights notice, this is many weeks/months AFTER the cycle event route has been consulted upon and agreed with the relevant local authorities. Cycle events happen on just a handful of weekends a year and directly contribute hundreds of thousands of pounds to the local economy in generally 'off-peak' times of the year. The New Forest is very much dependent upon tourism to survive financially, it is petty and misguided of certain local bodies to think that their actions to 'put off' cyclists will do anything but harm the welcoming image of the New Forest and as a consequence damage local businesses that are wholly reliant on visitors. The New Forest is a National Park now, whether some people like it or not there are certain statutory obligations to meet, including promoting the New Forest as a place to enjoy, and that very much includes being on two wheels.