$200,000 for Meelup bike trails

Setting up mountain bike trails in Zone 6 of Meelup Regional Park could cost $200,000 for stage one of development, a working group understands.

The group, under independent chairman Joe McEnroe, has had three meetings since being formed at the end of January, with representatives from the City of Busselton, Meelup Regional Park Management Committee and biking organisations.

Cape Mountain Bikers president Myles Happ said they were working on two Lotterywest grant applications worth $25,000 and $100,000 for the project.

The money would go towards formalising and upgrading the existing trail network and constructing new trails, including jump/flow trails with the use of machinery and contractors.

The total cost for stage one would come to $200,000, including car parks, rehabilitation work and signage.

Mr Happ said they were in the process of acquiring trail building materials to reduce costs and would also be calling on volunteers to provide labour.

Former Meelup Regional Park Management Committee member Andrew Cohen said the costs being quoted appeared excessive.

“When assessed against construction options, the layout of the trails as approved and what is already there (in Zone 6 and on the Dunsborough and Districts Country Club land), there is nothing in any reasonable interpretation of that frame of reference that positively requires the level of proposed expenditure, ” he said.

“All the justifiable needs and expectations can be satisfied, and the restraints respected for a small fraction of what I understand to be the proposed cost.”

Mr Happ said the price tag for the trail network may sound high but was based on an industry standard of $20 to $30 per linear metre.

“When you build infrastructure on government land there is an appropriate process and procedure to go through, ” he said.

“There are types of expenses that are accrued and we would rather a well-made trail network with appropriate approvals than something people will go in there and change and modify and which they can never rely on being what they expect.”