Wales Outdoors Put In A Consortia Bid To Manage Cwmcarn Forest
Wales Outdoors have gathered a fine team of independent and South East Wales based local businesses and has delivered a consortia bid for the management of Cwmcarn Forest’s amenities. These include the campsite, parking, bike shop, cafe, reception and shop area and activities on site.
The consortia members are hopeful that the site owners, Caerphilly County Borough Council and Natural Resources Wales will look favourably on the skills contained within the consortia and their being local to Cwmcarn.
Given an acceptance of the consortia bid, which does not include any cash injection but instead seeks to ‘move in’ and to spend much of 2025 renovating and delivering the services that the site offers to the highest possible standard, concentrating on a sense of place, of attracting rents for increased use of the site by both the local community and from visitors to the area and by ensuring that everything is being delivered at it should be.
Towards the end of 2025 the consortia would be looking to expand into 2026 and deliver a wide range of events, mini festivals and a full programme of guided trail riding and guided hiking, with skills courses and nationally recognised qualifications in these disciplines. We would also deliver a range of arts and crafts courses, making use of the forest and its ecology. Currently the provision at Cwmcarn is not so good, with the bike shop closed, no uplift service, no bike wash no bike hire. The cafe, although servicable, is standard and has no sense of place. The services offered do not sit well with the busy campsite, with the cafe closing late afternoon and missing out on the opportunity to sell meals to campers at weekends.
Existing Provision
Cafe
Information point
Campsite management
Parking
Growth in 2025
Bike shop to re-open
Bike Hire
Uplift service
Working with young people locally providing a learning location for those excluded from education or in need of social inclusion
Rental for use of space from children's charity consortia member
Mobile coffee and cake at top car park
Mobile wood fired sauna provision
Mobile wood fired pizza one evening a week
Outdoor kit sales
Monthly programme of guided hikes and guided bike rides
Growth in 2026
Ongoing programmes of screenings, workshops, classes across a wide range of interests, training and rental of the space for such
Festivals, two in 2026, walking and mountain biking
New activity provision such as SUPP, archery, ropes course, family orienteering
Marketing wellbeing breaks to include yoga, forest bathing and hiking retreats
We see Cwmcarn Forest becoming the South Wales centre of excellence for outdoor activity provision in Wales and we see it as a hub for tourism, bringing in visitors, who although staying elsewhere, are fascinated by the industrial history of the area and how it has been transformed into a community forest park.
We are hopeful that the landowners view the bid seriously and that they understand the limitations of the site, the most glaring being the single track road that is access to Cwmcarn Forest. We believe that large scale development of the forest would be detrimental to the local residents of Cwmcarn but that sensitive and incremental additional uses, making Cwmcarn Forest the centre of excellence for local education, tourism and activity provision, is the sensible approach to managing the site.
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