Knobblies MTBing Blog: Aston Hill to Close

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Aston Hill to Close

Although the venue is close by I've never made it over to Aston Hill and by the looks of this announcement, I never will. It's due for closure on 6th April. Future ownership and use is up for grabs so it could continue as one of London's closest MTB'g venues...

Brought to my attention by STW and BucksMTB.

3 Comments:

Rob#2 said...: Interesting news! I've never ridden the venue either but many of my local rides pass Aston Hill and it look like a great facility. I'm actually a member of the golf club (sorry guys!!) that runs right next to the Aston Hill centre. From what I've seen its very popular with the downhill full body armour bregade. It has some great tree lined steep down hill sections and on occasion I've seen air ambulances land on the golf course to take those away that have misjudged a decent!! My guess is that it will re-open some time soon under new ownership.

Rob#2; 3/23/2007 10:30 am |
Farqui said...: from Bikemagic...The good news just in, though, is that local shop Buckingham Bikes has taken on Aston Hill and Wendover Woods and will be running it as a riding area "as soon as possible".

Buckingham Bikes's Adam Brady says:

"Don't worry, Aston Hill's not going anywhere! We at Buckingham Bikes have taken the tender for the site, including both Aston Hill and the Wendover Woods area. We will be picking up where Ian left off with Aston, and should be running the site from April/May. Ian has done a fantastic job over the years, and we hope to carry on the tradition of Aston Hill as one of the premier downhill spots in the UK. We are hoping to carry on the running of the site with minimal downtime at handover, and to take Aston Hill to even greater heights! We'll be keeping everyone up to speed as much as we can with any fresh developments as and when they happen."

So there you go. From threatened with closure to possible minor disruption within the space of a few hours. Result!; 3/24/2007 7:58 pm |
Farqui said...: from a thread over on BikeRadar...All,

Astonhill is going to be closed for a short period (currently how long is not known) while a change in management from Bucks Bikes to the New club is given the ok by the forestry. This is a delicate time, as the crossover period means that the forestry are solely in charge of the Hill, and anything done to upset them may delay an agreement between the club and themselves being signed. What this means is that unfortunately we need people to stay away until we can officially re-open the hill under the new club.

So this means, please do not park on the grass or by the golf club and continue to use the hill anyway as this may have an adverse effect toward any agreement being signed.

I can assure you we will be doing our best to resolve this situation as quickly as possible, so you can all get back to riding as normal. And for the record, until Sunday afternoon, none of us had any idea the hill was going to be closed.

This is effective as of today, 4th December

Just as a little background:

The club has not yet been formalised or given the go ahead by the forestry, and as of a few weeks ago Buckingham bikes withdrew completely from Astonhill and Wendover Woods, hence this situation has arisen. For this reason, it is of real importance that nothing is done to upset the forestry, as we now rely solely on them to let us re open the hill.

Thank you in advance for your patience with this matter.

Just to clear up any confusion over Buckingham Bikes. We never officially signed over anything to do with Aston Hill, in the whole time we were running the place. We chased the FC over and over again with no reply's as I'm sure anybody who's tried contacting them will know. We had to wait until an official lease was put in place and as result we could not commit to a huge amount.

:(; 12/23/2007 10:28 am |