Blacka Planned Maintainance – Piper House Gate

We have been told that the work being done will be much more sensitive than other council jobs, more akin to the other work that has been done on Blacka. We will also be heading up there to help with a bit of finishing if required. Any feedback after completion is welcome, but just keep off it for now, thanks.

Piper House Bridleway @ Blacka Moor – We plan to fill in the deepest ruts  and improve the drainage without changing those parts of the route that mountain bikers particularly enjoy and are still OK for horse riders

NE and SWT are all adamant that as little damage as possible will be caused, and that the appearance of the route and its surroundings will be changed as little as possible.

The contractor is well aware that this path is popular with mountain bikers in the evenings, but it would be really helpful on such narrow path if the public could keep off it during hours of darkness.

A part of the job you and I have not discussed is that to minimise the vehicle movements on the path (and therefore damage), machinery and stone will be brought in from both ends of the path. This will mean that the lower section of the route will certainly need tidying up afterwards. This is a previously engineered brick dust path with cut off drains made from angled concrete kerbstones, that was put in at 1.5m width. This has narrowed to less than 1m in places with weed encroachment from the sides. I am intending to restore this to a 1.5m wide crushed gritstone surface with bunds built over the top of the kerb stones from crushed grit to shed surface water on our way back out from the site.

I have certainly taken on board your view that wider paths encourage speed, but, as you know, horse riders would like to see widths of at least 3m on Bridleways, and 1.5m will narrow over the next growing season back to what you see now. If I only tidied it up back to a width of 1m, it would disappear completely in the undergrowth next summer and the path would, as it is now, be all but impassable for horse riders.

Lenny Hill Bridleway @ Blacka Moor – for clarity, this is the Bridleway that goes up the hill, alongside the drop into the Blacka Dyke, across the stepping stones from close to the bottom of the Devils Elbow and Piper House Bridleways.

We will be filling in the steps towards the bottom of the slope and covering over the clay areas that are almost constantly muddy with crushed gritstone. We will be widening the route back to its original width (about 2.2m) alongside the steep drop because of horse riders’ safety concerns and tidying up the surface with crushed gritstone. We will be taking out the old bridge/boardwalk, installing a culvert pipe under the path instead, and stoning up with crushed gritstone over the top

If you have any questions or queries you can pass them on via Ride Sheffield.

Or contact Sheffield City Council
using the details below if you have any
further queries.
Sheffield City Council
Public Rights Of Way Group
Telephone 0114 273 4448
www.sheffield.gov.uk
publicrightsofway@sheffield.gov.uk