For several years now there’s been a voluntary agreement limiting mountain bike access to Snowdon, Wales’ highest (and most popular) mountain. Riders are asked to stay off the mountain between 10am and 5pm in the summer months, and the vast majority are more than happy to do so. Unfortunately it appears that a minority have got the wrong side of the local bureaucracy…

Despite most mountain bikers’ willingness to avoid overcrowding at busy times, elements of the Llanberis community council have started moves to downgrade Snowdon bridleways, including the Llanberis path, to footpaths. There are a number of ways to the top of Snowdon, but only a couple of them are sensible bike-riding propositions. They’re also the ones that are least interesting on foot…

We got wind of these moves from this forum thread and splendidly, before we’d had a chance to get hold of the Snowdon National Park Authority and ask them about the situation, Forestry Commission trails supremo Dafydd Davis had already done it.

He reports that the local authority and National Park believe that the request has “little chance of success – downgrading public rights of way is a very lengthy process which goes through the highways [authority] and can be blocked by the planning authority (in this case the Snowdonia National Park Authority)”.

Dafydd goes on to say that, while the National Park is “not crazy” about mountain bikers on Snowdon, they’re happy with the current voluntary agreement. Plus which the National Park is keen to be seen to encourage outdoor recreation and, largely thanks to Dafydd’s work, mountain bikes are big news in North Wales at the moment.

So, what do we need to do? The first message is not to panic – it’s a tortuous process and by the looks of things unlikely to succeed. But that said, it’s well worth making sure that the voluntary agreement is adhered to. And there’s certainly no harm in being extra-super-specially courteous and polite on Snowdon…