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A new family-friendly Mountain Bike facility will bring a taste of the Olympic Gold Medal winning sport to Bedworth, the Borough Council and British Cycling have announced today (Wednesday 22 October). 

The development of the grant-funded trails and skills facility at the town’s Miners’ Welfare Park will provide family-friendly fun, healthy activity and will help develop riders’ skills, they say.

With planning of the new facility now complete, work on site will begin during October.

British Cycling are contributing 50% of the funding for the facility through their ‘Places to Ride’ grants programme.

Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council Portfolio Holder of Health and Environment Cllr Julian Gutteridge said: “This is further fantastic news for Bedworth and the Borough following on from the recent grant-funded tennis and netball court improvements in the park, working with Bedworth Sports Club – all as part of delivering the wider development plan for Miners Welfare Park.”

The Council is targeting increased activity levels for residents for health reasons and this facility will deliver strongly on that without needing to be seen by any of the users as an exercise facility.

Added Cllr Gutteridge: “Following on so soon from Britain’s gold medal success at the Tokyo Olympics in mountain biking and success in other cycling events we aim to capitalise on interest in the sport.

“At the same time this will be very much a fun recreational and introductory and beginners facility - with a larger family-friendly ‘green’ level trail and skills area and a group of ‘blue’ trail options and loops within the park to allow progression for riders as their skills develop.

“We are very grateful to British Cycling and Sport England as we know the recent and last round of their ‘Places to Ride’ fund was heavily oversubscribed and we are glad they chose to support these proposals and to make that investment in the Borough and - you never know - potentially to have invested into developing future Olympians from them getting a first interest in the sport from having an enjoyable day out in their local park.”

The Council has also confirmed the Mountain Bike facility will impact at least five holes of the Disc Golf course within the park.

Portfolio Holder for Public Services Cllr Kyle Evans said: “We value the healthy recreational activity the disc golf course brings, and has brought to the park for a number of years. This has been a difficult choice, but we aim to make the very best use of space we have for as many sports as possible.

“We have started conversations with the Disc Golf Club, and would welcome people within the sport to help us explore how we might be able to continue to accommodate Disc Golf at Bedworth.

“We are delighted that we now have significant opportunities to improve facilities for local people. Through sums contributed by housing developers and through grant-aided projects such as today’s announcement, we can create new and additional facilities and modernise facilities. All of this will help significantly increase participation in healthy outdoor and family recreational activity and also increase participation in more formal and organised sport at the park.”

The Council intends that a wide range of new facilities - including the mountain bike trails provision - will more intensively use areas of the park taken back from the disc golf course and as a result will see significantly greater overall numbers of users. It is anticipated that the expanded range of activities will encourage many more residents to take up and participate in outdoor recreational activity - bringing health benefits and offering new and additional recreational facilities.

The Council announced work to improve tennis courts in the park last month.

Future announcements will provide greater detail of other new outdoor facilities planned alongside the mountain bike trails.