NEWSLETTER NUMBER 35                                   13 AUGUST 2009


DRAFT MASTER PLAN FOR STROMLO FOREST PARK

This Newsletter is to advise you that a first draft of the Master Plan for future development of Stromlo Forest Park is on the Stromlo Forest Park website for comment.  Go to http://www.stromloforestpark.com.au.  Although the site doesn’t say so, on purpose or by oversight, the comment period ends on 4 September.  The Plan is hard to read and some people have trouble printing it but please persevere because it is important that you have your say using the feedback form provided.

The ACT Equestrian Association (ACTEA), along with the Stromlo Horse Riders, the ACT Endurance Riders Association (ACTERA), the Monaro Trekkers, the Government Paddock Users’ Group and the Bicentennial Trail (BNT) coordinator had a meeting with the consultant, Cox Humphries, on 26 May 2009.  We thought we received a sympathetic hearing, so you can imagine our shock when we saw the results of the consultation process.

In summary, the Plan obliterates most of the horse riding trails in Stromlo and replaces them with accommodation, car parking, a 12k bitumen bike racing circuit, a gondola from the pavilion to the top of Mount Stromlo and a luge track.

ACTEA tried hard to renegotiate some of this before the Plan went public on the website but made little impression.  Christine Lawrence had a two-hour meeting with the consultants on Tuesday 11 August but was left with no sense that the equestrian trails would be reinstated safely any time soon.  All those things are still on the Plan and the equestrian trails are still not there.

The following analysis is based on the numbers on the Plan.  There is not a lot of joy in this.  We are repeatedly told that this is only the first draft and that there will be other versions.  If those other versions are to reflect the present equestrian facilities in Stromlo and the way you want to use the Park you really must act now and submit a comment on the Stromlo website.  There is no mention of equestrian facilities in the comment form but there is space at the bottom of the form to make you comment.

It is important to make the point that this plan reneges on all the promises made by the government and the Chief Minister personally that this would be a multi-use park for everyone including horse riders.


Item by Item Analysis

Where a number is not included it simply means that facility is unlikely to impact on horse riders.

#2,#4,#5#11

Although this isn’t labelled in a way that anyone would recognise it is the alignment for the Bicentennial National Trail (BNT).  It follows the eastern bank of Holdens Creek.  On 24 March 2009 ACTEA and the BNT Coordinator met with the Land Development Agency (LDA,) responsible for the development of Molongo, and it was agreed that the BNT and a proposed cycle trail would pass under the new east-west arterial on opposite sides of the Creek.  This looked like a safe and pleasant solution to getting around the new suburbs of Molonglo.

The Master Plan proposes widening this underpass but now including in its route racing cyclists and runners.  The BNT has been allocated to a single mixed-use trail.  The surface required for each of these activities is quite different so it is difficult to see how they could safely coexist in a single narrow trail.

If they travel along the BNT through the proposed new routes horse riders will have to negotiate 7 playing fields and a car park to get to the exit cavaletti on the Cotter Road.

The BNT coordinator is having additional talks with the consultants so we trust that this situation can be improved.

#6,#7,#8,#9#10

At the moment Pipeline Road is a Designated Horse Trail which crosses the Park from Bluegums to Uriarra Road, where it loops around the big carpark.  It is proposed to build hotel, office and tourist accommodation on the Pipe Line Road and use the carpark for bus, drop-off and day parking.  This is means there will be:
·     Lots of people, often on bikes, coming and going
·     Several more entrances to the carpark than the one presently
·     It will operate at all hours rather than on special event days as it does presently
·     Many of the vehicles will be large tourist buses

It will be impossible for any but the most bullet-proof horse to pass through this lot and why would they want to?

This innovation will cost horse riders about a kilometre of track.  It could be possible to reroute the Equestrian Trail around the cabins but the consultants have not done that, probably because it would take horses into bike track areas.  

#17

Christine Lawrence was given an ultimatum between accepting a gondola to the top of Stromlo and not having equestrian trails in the north of the Park.  

The flexing and cracking of the existing bridge on the downhill upsets some horses so another overhead installation won’t help.  The issues associated with the gondola for equestrians are:
·     Alienation of existing equestrian trails; and
·     Safety of horse riders

Since the downhill track has already alienated part of the eastern hillside, a gondola that, as much as possible, follows the alignment of the downhill course would limit the larger impact of the chairlift.  This is particularly important at the bridge crossing.  This crossing is dodgy enough without adding an overhead chairlift further on.  Putting them all in one place has to be better:

The biggest noise issue for equestrians is when the cables cross over pylons.  To minimise this, pylons would need to be placed as far as possible from the designated equestrian trails.  

Objects falling from the gondola are also a concern.  Equestrians should expect that there will be NO objects (such as bikes) suspended from the outside of a gondola which could fall onto any part of the Park, and if they did it should be, fittingly, on the downhill track.

The real problem with the gondola is that to make it pay for itself there has to be a reason for lots of people to want to pay to go to the top of the mountain.  Clearly the consultants do not think there will be enough downhill cyclists for this purpose so they have to introduce other enticements – hence #22 further on.

#18

The consultants have included a camping area in the vacant land between Bibaringa and the Mount Stromlo Road.  This is in response to a request from the ACT Endurance Riders that Stromlo provide space for them to have overnight accommodation when they do rides.  The legend does not specify that the camping area contains yards or wash bays and its siting only makes sense if it is possible to get into the Park from there which at the moment seems problematic.  You will note that the present signposted entrance to the Park of the Stromlo Road does not appear on the Plan and has been replaced by a new trail at #28.  It is impossible to get to Bluegums from here. This represents a loss of about a kilometre of designated equestrian trail.

#22

There is a plan to add a luge run to the slopes of Stromlo above Bluegums.  This is a fun thing that involves lying on a sled and travelling at great speed downhill around a constructed track.  It appears that this installation is proposed in order to attract more people to use the gondola.  It impact will be to wipe out all the equestrian trail from Bluegums up the slope of the mountain to the bike bridge.  These things are very noisy so you can expect not to want to go anywhere near Bluegums on a horse.  Since the equestrian trail from Bibaringa to Bluegums seems to have disappeared off the map it may no longer be possible to get to Bluegums in any case.  This is one of the biggest impacts of the Master Plan.  It will take out about 3km of equestrian trails.

#23

The racing circuit has numerous implications for equestrians.  This circuit is for the road racers you see on the Cotter Road.  It will be wide enough to cope with racing events where cyclists travel up to 50km per hour and could be as wide as the Stromlo Road itself.  It will be sealed with bitumen.  Horses cannot safely be in the same corridor as such a thing.  

·     The trail will leave the Criterium Circuit at the bottom of the Park, travel along firetrails to the bottom gate of Stromlo.
o     This may be why the Holdens Creek Crossing has disappeared off the Plan.

·     It then travels u the Stromlo Road itself.  There is talk of closing the Stromlo Road to traffic for this purpose.  
o     This may be why the entrance to Stromlo from Bibaringa has disappeared

·     The circuit will then pass into Block 12 using the route between the water treatment plant and the cottages at the top of Stromlo.
o     This is a narrow route between the waterworks entrance and the cottages and it will be impossible for horses and bikes to share this space.  It will no longer be possible to ride into Block 12 via this route

·     The circuit then travels on an existing firetrail route around the perimeter of Block 12 coming back into the front of the mountain near the western carpark on Uriarra Road.
o     This will alienate most of the best riding in Block 12, even if it was possible to get there

·     It then travels down the fire trail on Uriarra Road, round the carpark and back to the Criterium Circuit.
o     This will turn the designated equestrian trail along the Uriarra Road edge of Stromlo into part of the circuit.  This will remove an additional 2km of Designated Equestrian Trail from the Park

Under this scenario the only way into Block 12 will be from the western carpark but since it will be impossible to get through Bluegums or along Pipeline Road to get there you’ll have to go by horse float.  Once you are in there, there will be precious few connected trails to ride on.

#24

This number indicated enhancement of existing trails, which might lend a little hope in a dim prospect.  However if you go to the feedback form for the Plan those things listed for enhancement do not include equestrian trails, so you can expect that all the enhancement  will be for someone else.

#28

This trail is the only one marked as “equestrian” on the Plan.  It is continuation of the BNT from the cavaletti on the Cotter Road.  It travels west along the perimeter of Stromlo Forest Park on the Cotter Road and crossing the Stromlo summit road at its intersection with Cotter Road.  This is ridiculous for two reasons:
·     At the intersection of Cotter Road and Mount Stromlo Road Holdens Creek runs through a steep, 5m deep gully, impossible for a horse to pass; and
·     The intersection of Cotter Road and Mount Stromlo Road is a blind corner and not a place that horse riders have ever wanted to traverse.  

The attempt to forces horse riders down this route is another reason for assuming that the intention is to close the present entrance to the Park further up the hill, probably to maintain the integrity of the racing circuit.