Tarland Development Group has appointed Chris Roper as Community Cycling and Trails Manager for Tarland Trails, a three-year post funded with £90,000.

Update, 20 October 2026: the post has been filled. Tarland Development Group (TDG) announced that, following a competitive interview process, Chris Roper has been appointed as its new Community Cycling and Trails Manager. Chris has been involved with TDG's work already and steps down from the Tarland Trails Steering Group to join the TDG staff team.

TDG says Chris will support the development and delivery of community cycling, trail activities, events, training and volunteering opportunities. For dig days, events and sessions as they are announced, follow Tarland Trails on Facebook.

The role

TDG announced two pieces of funding news for Tarland Trails within a fortnight in summer 2026. A £10,000 National Lottery grant for its "Get Cromar Cycling" initiative was followed two weeks later by news that £90,000 had been secured to fund the Community Cycling and Trails Manager post for three years.

The role was advertised as 28 hours per week over four days, with a salary of £31,250 pro rata plus employer pension contributions. TDG said the position would cover growing community cycling for all ages and abilities, developing and improving the trail centre, working with volunteers, schools and partner organisations, and delivering cycling events and programmes. Applications closed on 21 August.

Tarland Trails runs across two sites near the village in Aberdeenshire. Drummy Woods, the smaller and more beginner-friendly of the two, was created in 2015 and offers a blue and red trail, an orange jump run and a pump track. Pittenderich, about a mile away, opened in April 2023 and is the larger site, with around 17km of blue, red and black trails for intermediate and advanced riders. Both sites are suitable for Adaptive Mountain Bikes, with the exception of the red trail at Drummy Woods.

TDG is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (Registered Charity SC041598) that has run community projects in Tarland and the Howe of Cromar since 2010.

Two approaches to the same problem

Tarland's funded post is worth setting alongside what Tweed Valley Trails Association has been doing, because the two are tackling the same question from different angles.

Tarland is funding a role. One person with responsibility for the trails, community programmes and volunteer coordination, backed for three years.

TVTA is funding the work. The charity published its own figures earlier this year: around £20,000 a year to run, with roughly £17,000 of that paying a maintenance contractor for two trail maintainers working two days a week, 30 weeks a year. Regular donations and subscriptions cover about £10,000 of it, with sponsorship and one-off giving bridging the gap. TVTA has said its longer-term aim is full-time maintenance contractors across the valley.

Different structures, same underlying bet: that routine trail care needs a funded, unbroken commitment rather than depending on who turns up on a given weekend.

Over to the community: for the trails you ride most, what would make the biggest difference, a paid person coordinating things, paid hands doing the maintenance, or more riders turning up to dig days?

Check out the Tarland Trails Pittenderich listing on iBikeRide, and add your reviews, photos and videos.

Photo of Chris Roper courtesy of Tarland Development Group.