Parish Council Funds £3,000 Gate Against Joy-Riders

A parish council with £7.2 million in the bank has voted to spend up to £3,000 on a specially designed gate to stop a pony and trap - and quad bikes - using a woodland footpath in Finchampstead.

Most of the cash comes from CIL developer contributions, a portion of which must be spent within a set time.

Parish council chairman David Cornish said: "It's a nice problem to have".

The gate targets what councillors call anti‑social behaviour: youngsters joy‑riding quad bikes and sometimes driving a pony and trap along the off‑road track the parish recently improved to keep people away from fast traffic. Children have been seen driving the pony up Corfield Close.

One CIL project was resurfacing Longwater Lane through Fleet Copse. The historic route is now Footpath 33; with the new surface it's passable on foot, bike or even horse‑and‑carriage, and the council plans to reclassify it as a bridlepath.

Councillors say the gate will need to be more than 20 feet wide and specially designed to let horses step over while blocking quad bikes and carriages. They also want enforcement: a road traffic order could allow police to confiscate motor vehicles, which would then be crushed. It was not stated how the enforcement could apply to ponies.

Ted O'Neill, Local Democracy Reporter