CafesideMTB Planning Updates

Planning Update August 2024

We are currently awaiting Teignbridge District Councils decision on our second planning application. Following discussions with planning consultants and the new UK MTB Trail Alliance, we decided to apply for a Certificate of Lawfulness for Existing Use (CLUED) to obtain change of use on the site from Forestry to Forestry and Mountain Bike Trail Centre, and protection under Permitted Development to cover the building and maintenance of both existing and future trails on the site.

The CLUED application requires the site to have been in constant use for over 10 years, so we have supplied YouTube videos, photos, race events and details from Forestry England supporting our application.

The Permitted Development Rights are related to the fact that CafesideMTB is on Crown Land, and as a group CafesideMTB have been and will continue to be working with and on behalf of Forestry England. Being on Crown Land offers a range of development rights that mean we will not have to apply for additional planning permission for new trails, features etc. when building in future.

Planning Update March 2024

We’ve been asked by Teignbridge District Council planning department to withdraw our planning application otherwise it will be refused in its current form.

The issue is with the boundary of our planning application. Back in September 2023 we submitted our initial planning application with the boundary covering the entirety of the Cafeside site - the car park, start ramps plus the whole of the plantation to cover all the trails.

At this point our application was received but missed by the planning department, and after 3 months of chasing, eventually entered the validation process. “Something appears to have gone wrong” was the reason given for this delay.

On the advice of the Teignbridge District Council planning department during the validation phase, they recommended that we updated the boundary drawing so that it was under 1 hectare, covering the car park and start ramps.

We have now been advised that they want the boundary line to cover the entire site after all, allowing the commercial woodland to have change of use so that it becomes “commercial woodland and mountain bike trail centre”.

To get to this point 6 months after submitting our application is frustrating beyond words. Having gone through this in detail with Teignbridge District Council planners, they will not permit us to update our existing application, nor will we be getting a refund on the fees we paid. “We tried to be helpful, but unfortunately we got this one wrong” was their explanation.

We can appeal, but this would take up to 32 weeks, and again, would only give us planning for the car park and start ramps, not the change of use needed to allow us to alter and expand the trail network going forwards.

Therefore we will be withdrawing our planning application, amending the drawings and document to take into account all of the feedback that we’ve received during the last 6 months of the planning process. We will then re-submit as soon as possible.

We are as frustrated as anyone that this is the situation that we’re faced with, but we’re not going to give up. We’re confident that going forwards our revised application will be stronger, and hopefully this is a speed bump on the road to getting Cafeside re-opened.

Once we have our new planning application live, we’ll be asking everyone to re-submit their letters of support, as these can not be carried over from the first application. Yes, we asked...

CafesideMTB planning timeline