Trial bike riders are set to mount a legal challenge against Bath and North East Somerset Council to save the “wonderful facility” that has been a home to the motorsport for almost 50 years.

People have been coming to Fry’s Bottom Wood, near Clutton, for trial riding since the 1970s. But in June 2022, the council sent an enforcement notice to the wood’s owner Steve Willcox stating he would need planning permission for bikers to continue using the site.

A change of use planning application was submitted to the council — but the council refused to grant it. Now Mr Willcox plans to crowdfund the money to appeal the decision. He said: “We should get a lot of support because if this loses at appeal every venue in the country will be under threat.”

A petition calling on Bath and North East Somerset Council to grant the planning permission has been signed by 1,395 people. Mr Willcox, a former member of the council’s planning committee, said it should not have needed planning permission as it had been used for trial bikes for more than 10 years. But he only began keeping records of bookings in 2013 and so had been unable to prove this.

More than 300 people submitted comments to the council urging it to grant the application, with many questioning why the council had issued the enforcement notice. Martin Everett wrote: “I think there is a misunderstanding between the use of noisy scramblers and quiet trials bikes.

“Trials bikes are low speed and only used on tick over whilst negotiating obstacles — which is the whole idea and fun of off road trialling. Steve runs the place like a well oiled machine and will have no unruly groups on site.”

But there were also objections submitted by 40 people and by Clutton and Chelwood Parish Councils. Local councillor Sam Ross (Clutton and Farmborough, Green) said she had “concerns” and called for the plans to go before the planning committee if officers thought it should be approved.

Clutton Parish Council stated: “Under the current arrangement the trials are allowed to operate for a maximum of 14 days per year, which is an occasional annoyance to local residents. If the proposed scheme is to go ahead the local residents fear that the noise will be constant through the week and at weekends.

“Concern was expressed about the continuing damage to the woodland and natural habitat.”

But Mr Willcox said that wildlife such as buzzards, herons, and muntjac deer were common around the site. He said: “The wildlife that’s in the area here have been brought up with the bikes so they are not afraid of this.”

He added that he had not had enough time to submit all the required information before the application was decided. A noise assessment carried out for the planning application required the noise levels of bikes in the wood to be recorded for two days — only for Mr Willcox to be told that this had used up two of his 14 days to open the site.