No new bike parking but a car park with 1,065 spaces? National Trust urged to break from "car-dependant business model"

"...We have made the car so convenient" - driver privilege in action, you're so so close...

Convenient for whom? At what price?  How big does the car park get? 

Well I'm sure the NT have a good grasp on who's visiting and where their cash comes from - and are actively thinking about how to keep the show going.  I suspect a LOT of NT visitors are in the older age bracket.  So them being "realistic" about travel considerations - to at least ensure they exist for the next decade - is understandable.  Even if they're not paying as much attention to the non-motorised as we might hope.

Given that a lot of their estate is places built by the elite, for the elite and sometimes damn the expenses though... perhaps the whole idea of sustaining such places needs careful consideration.  If we're not to live beyond our collective means.  It might be righteous that now all us hoi-polloi can visit these properties fairly ad-lib.  Many are in places deliberately remote from population centres however.

On "sustainability" - apparently Capability Brown was so popular partly because (having worked his way up from apprentice gardener) he was good making parts of his designs functional as well as beautiful.  He well understood that the whole needs to support its own upkeep.  I'm sure he'd have approved of National Trust gift shops and cafes!

I agree with you. I'm just recognising that fighting that ingrained carcentricity is hard to do. Being a thought leader and having minimal parking provision may be the right thing to do, but for an organisation like NT it is also likely to deter a large part of the current customer base and threaten their short term viability.       

quiff wrote:

(I mean, who would come here to post if they didn't like cycling?) ...        

You'd be surprised... 

Sadly not! 

I'd love to meet the 4 year old who can cycle 10 miles including 8% gradients carring a couple of picnic chairs and a coolbag. At least the way home is mostly downhill to Stockport. 

Well that sounds like a big trip out!  8% gradients are considered a bit much for "casual cycling" in places where it's normal, like the Netherlands.  Carrying kids also - give yourself an ebike - or even a couple!  Maybe a Tern GSD that the road.cc folks like.  And/or a bakfiets type - perhaps even an Urban Arrow?

This video of lots of people getting around with small children isn't recorded in the UK.  It could look like that in more places here though if we choose (via heckling our governors and other organisations).  That'll be too late for most current 4 year-olds, unless their parents move.  It could certainly be important for their children.

The bigger point is - currently we define what's normal mostly in terms of "what I can reasonably do / where I can get to when equipped with a car".  That may well change.  Either by choice (collective enlightened self-interest) or by fiat.

ITK2012 wrote:

I'd love to meet the 4 year old who can cycle 10 miles including 8% gradients carring a couple of picnic chairs and a coolbag. At least the way home is mostly downhill to Stockport. 

You'd take picnic chairs to a NT property?  There's posh - do you own a Volvo? 

(You've heard of picnic blankets?)

Too frugal for the National Trust cafe!  They can be ... ambitiously priced.

We should improve society somewhat.

Cyclists - let's have a cycle track

drivers- my entire world will cease to exist 

ITK2012 wrote:

Sorry, this must be the site for delusional cycling extremists who think that a family going for a day out with 4 people, a dog and a picnic set are suddenly going to decide to cycle for hours carrying all these things to get to their destination.

No, it's the site for delusional cycling extremists who cycle for hours to get to a NT property... whilst the rest of the family travel there by car (guilty!).

I suspect they do get it, but they also realise that visitor numbers would be decimated if they significantly reduced parking. 

But just by sinking in a few Sheffield stand you can park ten or more bicycles in the space that one car takes up.

Three or four reduced spaces out of a thousand, just beyond the less than able spaces, see how it does. If it proves popular then a few more car spaces might be sacrificed to a few drivest spots.

Again, transport heads for Lyme Park are tantalisingly close, at less than 2 miles. I get that it's a 200 ft height difference from train Disley station to the house.  I get that all the houses in their care are hungry.

The NT's website is decidedly unhelpful: how to get here - the cycling tab just has a link to Sustrans, which is a cop-out. There is a free minibus from near the main entrance operating most of the year (under arrival by bus).  Looks great for walking and and upgrade for cycling would surely not be that difficult. 

At one NT place local to, me an exhibition on decades of capital punishment for homosexuality, starting with the entrance hall full of nooses - unexpected, challenging and informative. It's great that the NT place so much emphasis on disability access and that they feature a diverse range of people visiting in their brochures.
But all those people need access to a car to join in in all but a few cases. 
 

Stourhead 

l've seen this expand the parking offer as Lyme are doing: it creeps from grassed "overflow" areas, and then it's "we're only upgrading existing areas we can't use year round".

In this case, it's miles from anywhere, apart from the A303. On the plus side the catering and toilets are outwith the admission booth, so it's popular with cyclists as a rest stop.

Catering
while I'm on it, this often seems like a missed opportunity as too many places are stuck, catering-wise, in a model of the Bad Old Days when sites opened three afternoons a week from April to September - you studied the annual handbook intently to work out the puzzle.

Too small, and frustratingly, too slow.

Please, please, please all caterers - don't mix the food queue with the complicated coffee queue. Barista Coffee is lucrative, but you'll lose food sales if you don't have the capacity and skill to produce it quickly - it is quite labour intensive.  I get that you are weather bound, staffing isn't easy, so gear the offer accordingly with more self-service, don't try to hold on to some genteel model of old.  Most places I visit I am staggered by how disorganised and unproductive the arrangements are at busy times. it spoils the experience.