Tarland Development Group (TDG) has announced two pieces of funding news for Tarland Trails within the space of a fortnight. 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 a new Community Cycling and Trails Manager post for three years.

The role is advertised as 28 hours per week over four days, with a salary of £31,250 pro rata plus employer pension contributions. TDG says the position will 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 close on Friday 21 August at 5pm, with full details and the job description on the Tarland Development Group page.

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.