Park and Ride

[Jessey]

We seem to have the travelling thing down now so we’ve done a couple of park and rides recently, we’ve still got a few more to go all within half an hour of home but I was keen to go a little further and find something out of the forest, and was shocked to learn they aren’t commonplace!

Or maybe they just go by a different name? If you want to go out to hack do you just park up wherever or at an organised place? I don’t really want to do organised rides, but I might have to to get access to places.

I used to park on the side of the road but with a borrowed trailer I like the security of a venue at the moment.

 

[chunky monkey]

There's someone that comes and parks in my road in the carpark with her 3.5t horsebox. Yet to see horse and rider but it's been there probably once a month that i know of in the last 6 months. Shes effectively parking in with all the doggy walkers.
From there shes got eaay access to the bridleways.

The only thing if you want security is to look at the route you want to do and see if there's any large pub carparks, village halls etc and contact them before hand and see if they will allow you to park there for a couple of hours and offer them a parking fee. Maybe try a farm shop, or farm that has a facebook page and see if they will let you park for a couple of hours. They can only say no.

 

[Tir]

A fair few of the larger equestrian centers around my way have some kind of park up and ride scheme with varying costs. Also worth having a look at country parks as some of them do as well. And I know you have a lot of woods, but we have very good (now free) riding in our local forestry commission land.

How fantastic you can plan such adventures!

 

[Jessey]

The forest here is forestry commission too, it’s something like 60,000 acres and we’re right in the middle of it, and there’s loads or P&R (paid) options and other places to park free in the forest, I’m just wanting to get out to some open farm or park land so he can see big spaces more.

Pubs and village halls is an option but don’t offer the security of a fenced and manned P&R place. I’ll reach out to some EC’s, but there aren’t many around here, that was a shock to me when I moved from Herts to Norfolk!

 

[Jessey]

I just thought if it isn’t a thing or called something different in other areas I should probably explain what I mean by park & ride.

It is a fenced paddock for parking on a yard where people are around all day, generally there’s a hose off area and toilets, and some have extras like cafe, picnic tables, turnout pens, camping and most have direct access to off road riding or very little roadwork riding. Most charge £10 per vehicle for the day.

It’s nice to be able to unload/load within a fence just in case but mostly it’s nice to know no one is tampering with your rig as someone is around keeping an eye on things and as they’re horsey there is help if things go sideways when you’re on your own.