Shake off the doom and gloom of Eastway closing this Halloween – the LDA has outlined the Hog Hill planning proposal and announced it’s to be submitted on 4 November.

The consultation leaflet is online at :

www.lda.gov.uk/upload/pdf/HogHill_leaflet.pdf

The lower loop is now 1.15km instead of 1km, which means there’s more circuit at the lower end and less at the top of the site to be used as part of the indy circuit in sight of the clubhouse, and the Indy circuit is now exactly 500m. The full-on fast circuit is 2km ‘rabbits ears’ (I prefer ‘alpine turns’) bring an additional 100m into play.

This is a public process, so comments can be sent directly to the LDA by the channels outlined in the above leaflet, and you can also comment on the application to the local authority whose planning officers are to decide on it.

If you approve of the plans after 4 November we reccommend writing a letter of support to the Redbridge planning office during the planning application consultation period, closing date is 25 November.

Comments on the detail of the application:

This is not an application which has to include the hard landscaping required for singletrack to be made. It’s about the buildings, access, parking and the road circuit. It looks like it will be possible to route the off-road right around the perimeter of the site, subject to conservation issues.

It looks like the finish straight is nice and wide with the curves at each end continuing for some way at this width, though there are no specific details available yet.

The section which the alpine turns are intended to bypass is the steepest at 1:7 (13%), and the swoop down from the line going clockwise is pretty steep at 1:9 (11%). Preference might be to move the finish so it’s more diagonal across the top field and so avoid the highest part of the top field. The main hill (section S) is 182m of 1:14 climb (8% or 13m altitude bottom to top).

More information soon…