I spoke to Claire Saunders, the ROW officer at Pippbrook, last week. I called about the barrier put up on Stanley Road, the footpath close to the end of Summer Lightning. Here's what she said:

"We are putting in offset barriers at the top and bottom of the footpath because it is being used excessively by mountain bikers at the weekends. It is too narrow, there are fallen trees and no space. I was there on the Sunday morning when the first barrier went in, and a large number of mountain bikers went past us at high speed. We've basically put the barrier up because of public safety issues.
"This is one particular footpath. I'm not going to be going out on a vendetta against cyclists or anything like that."

Claire also said they're going to put up a bigger footpath sign at the top to make it more obvious that it's a footpath.

I'll just say that again. Footpath. I love riding Stanley Road, it's a smashing trail, but so do a lot of other people. And the local authority is perfectly within its rights to restrict access for cycles, cars and horses to a footpath if it becomes a problem. It appears to have become a problem.