Hmmm... months of silence and then suddenly this newsletter a couple of days before a planned community march to get some answers?
I for one do not and have never shared TokaiMTB's approach of 'No new is good news'. What a load of bollocks.
The above newsletter tells me nothing that I don't already know. Simply put, Tokai is closed and nobody can or wants to say when it will re-open. Why? Well I think because of all the other questions that will have no answers. Like, will trails already have been created, what will fees be? What is the plan we are being told and what will actually happen? etc.
Tokai will have been closed for almost 2 years when it (possibly) re-opens... with no work done to it except tons and tons of machinery / trees having being dragged across its surface and judging by previous trail building, this would mean another waiting period of probably a minimum of 2 years before any trails are completed. Especially if things pick up where they left off before the fires.
Just as an example, Helderberg trails are officially opening on the 12th of Dec. You know how long Jan and his team have been building there to get it to this point? Years. And they have been building daily and have now acquired machinery to further improve on the building and speeding things up.
The trail network that has developed across the peninsula and surrounds since the closure of Tokai has been amazing. Lots of effort is/has been made by most of the stakeholders to give the trail users what they want. But most importantly, there is a sense of community with regular articles, updates, new trails, questions floating about on how to improve this or that etc.
Perhaps TokaiMTB should maybe place a little more importance on the issue of transparency & public involvement and keeping the communication channels going. Because at this rate, come opening day, you may find a much shorter queue than you anticipated.
