Motocross Doesn’t Need Grandstands – But Is Britain Running Out of Places to Ride?
Motocross appears to require very little. Give riders a field, some earthworks and somewhere to park the vans, and the racing can begin
That apparent simplicity is deceptive. Behind every legal motocross meeting sits a landowner willing to accommodate it, planning permission or tightly restricted permitted-use days, insurance, medical provision, marshals, noise controls, track preparation and an organiser prepared to carry the responsibility.
When one of those elements disappears, a circuit can close without leaving a derelict grandstand or boarded-up ticket office behind. The field grows quiet, the jumps gradually flatten and another grassroots motorcycle venue vanishes almost unnoticed.
The jeopardy facing motocross is therefore related to the crisis confronting British speedway, but it is not identical. Speedway needs spectators to fill a stadium. Motocross relies far more heavily upon competitors filling the start gate—and those competitors have other ways to spend their money and ride motorcycles.
Motocross Tracks Can Disappear Quietly
A speedway closure creates a recognisable image: an empty oval, silent terraces and a famous club left without a home. Motocross venues are often temporary, seasonal or shared with agricultural land. They can disappear through a change of ownership, a withdrawn agreement or a planning dispute without attracting attention outside the local riding community.
The Auto-Cycle Union has established a Land Use Advisory Service specifically because planning, access and noise have become recurring problems for affiliated clubs. That tells us something important. Britain may not be physically short of fields, quarries and woodland, but it is short of land on which regular motorcycle activity is acceptable, insurable and commercially workable.
Even an isolated-looking circuit can affect people beyond its boundary. Motorcycle noise travels across open countryside, while dry meetings can create dust and wet ones can damage access roads. Vans, trailers, generators and public-address systems add to the impact. Councils are legally obliged to investigate potential statutory nuisance, and neighbours are entitled to expect organisers to respect agreed limits.
The problem is finding a balance that permits responsible motorsport rather than treating every complaint as proof that motorcycles and countryside cannot coexist.
The Competitors Are Also the Customers
Motocross is more participant-led than speedway. A major championship may attract a paying crowd, but the financial foundation of club racing and practice days is normally the people riding.
Their entry fees must help cover track preparation, insurance, officials, medical support, toilets, waste removal and the other costs of operating safely. If entries decline, those costs do not conveniently disappear. The amount carried by each remaining rider increases, fees rise or the meeting becomes impossible to run.
The entry fee is only the visible part of the rider’s bill. A day’s motocross may also require a van or trailer, fuel for the journey, competition fuel, a licence, club membership, protective equipment, tyres, chains, filters, replacement plastics and inevitable repairs. Families supporting two or more young riders can face a formidable commitment.
The closure of a nearby track magnifies every cost. A rider who once travelled 30 miles may face a 150-mile round trip. The racing has not necessarily become more expensive, but accessing it has.
That distinction matters. Motocross could retain enthusiastic riders and still lose competitors because participation no longer fits their available time or household budget.
Green Laning Offers a Different Kind of Freedom
Motocross is not competing only with other organised sports. It is also competing with another way of enjoying an off-road motorcycle.
A road-legal trail bike can offer several hours of riding without a starting gate, race schedule or pressure to clear the next jump. Friends can explore at their own pace, stop for lunch and make the journey part of the experience. For an older club rider, somebody returning after injury or a parent unable to maintain a full racing programme, that can be enormously attractive.
It is not automatically cheap. Lawful green-lane riding requires an appropriately registered, taxed and insured motorcycle, the correct licence and an MOT where applicable. The machine must be maintained, fuelled and equipped just as it would for any other road journey. Legal routes are scattered, sometimes disputed and can be restricted temporarily or permanently.
But value is not measured only in pounds. A rider may compare transporting a competition motorcycle to a circuit for several timed sessions with spending most of a day travelling along legal unsurfaced roads. The second option can feel like more riding for the effort and expenditure.
The committed racer will not regard green laning as a substitute for motocross. The recreational middle may do exactly that.
The Riders Motocross Cannot Afford to Lose
National champions and ambitious young racers are highly visible, but grassroots meetings also depend upon riders who will never win a major title.
They are the practice-day regulars, occasional club competitors, parents joining their children, riders returning after a long absence and older racers who still love a start gate without needing a trophy. Their fees, memberships and volunteer effort help make events viable for everybody else.
If enough of those participants move into trail riding, enduro or away from off-road sport entirely, the remaining motocross community carries a larger share of the expense. Higher fees may then persuade more occasional riders to leave.
That produces a dangerous circle: fewer accessible tracks create longer journeys and higher real costs; entries fall; organisers must recover their fixed expenses from fewer people; participation becomes still less affordable.
Green laning is not killing motocross. It may simply reveal what some riders increasingly value—freedom, usable riding time, companionship and participation without the pressure of competition.
Green Laning Is Not Trespass
This distinction must be made clearly because legal trail riders are too often bundled together with people using unregistered motorcycles wherever they choose.
Green lanes carrying vehicular rights are roads. Trail riders must obey the same requirements that apply on surfaced highways. Lawful routes may include Byways Open to All Traffic and certain unclassified roads, subject to local restrictions and their current legal status.
A footpath, bridleway, restricted byway, public park or piece of open countryside does not become a motorcycle route because it has tyre tracks on it. Riding on private land requires the landowner’s permission. Many dedicated motocross motorcycles are not registered or equipped for road use and cannot legally be transferred from a closed circuit to a green lane.
Responsible trail organisations work to protect access precisely because the actions of an irresponsible minority can threaten it. The 2026 Ride Right initiative brought together the Trail Riders Fellowship, ACU, Motorcycle Industry Association and National Motorcyclists Council to promote legal and considerate riding both on green roads and at organised venues.
The campaign is necessary because illegal riding damages more than the land beneath the wheels. It creates conflict with walkers, horse riders, farmers and residents, then hardens public opposition towards every form of off-road motorcycling.
Close the Tracks, Then Complain About Illegal Riding
Trespass cannot be excused by expensive entry fees or a shortage of convenient circuits. Riders are responsible for knowing where they may legally use their motorcycles.
However, public policy must acknowledge displacement. If affordable, supervised venues disappear while motorcycles remain widely available, the demand to ride does not evaporate with the planning permission.
Most responsible competitors will travel farther, change disciplines or stop. Some will move into lawful trail riding. A minority may head for woods, waste ground, bridleways or farmland without permission.
There is no reliable national evidence demonstrating that every motocross closure produces a corresponding increase in illegal riding, and it would be unfair to present ordinary competitors as offenders waiting for an opportunity. But it is equally naïve to remove legitimate provision and assume that it cannot affect behaviour.
A properly managed motocross circuit concentrates activity in an agreed place. It provides operating hours, noise testing, marshals, medical support, track maintenance and supervision for young riders. It separates motorcycles from walkers, horses and general public access.
Such venues should therefore be recognised as part of the response to illegal off-road riding—not mistaken for another version of the problem.
Motocross Must Earn Its Place
Defending circuits does not mean granting every operator freedom to ignore neighbours.
Poorly maintained silencers, riding outside agreed hours, dust drifting across nearby properties and inconsiderate driving through villages will destroy goodwill quickly. An organiser who treats planning conditions as optional makes the next club’s application harder.
Responsible venues need clear operating calendars, credible noise monitoring, dust suppression, traffic management and a willingness to speak with the surrounding community before disagreement becomes warfare. Riders must understand that behaviour in the paddock and on nearby roads influences whether they will be welcomed back.
The sport also needs to keep its recreational participants. Practice sessions for different abilities, coaching, family days and welcoming club structures may matter as much as producing elite championships. If every meeting feels designed only for committed racers with deep pockets, the casual rider will find another way to enjoy a motorcycle.
Less Concrete Does Not Mean Less Valuable
Motocross does not require the infrastructure of Silverstone or a speedway stadium. That should make it easier to preserve, yet its modest physical footprint can make it politically invisible.
A field used for several motorcycle meetings may look empty for most of the year. To a planner or developer, that can appear underused. To a club, it may be the essential home of a regional championship, a training ground for children and the only legal circuit within a two-hour drive.
This is the same mistake repeatedly made across grassroots motorsport: measuring the value of land by the number of days it generates revenue rather than the activity it makes possible.
Tonfanau showed how a motorcycle meeting can depend upon a small group of determined people. Speedway demonstrates the danger of clubs relying upon stadium owners with different commercial priorities. Motocross completes the picture by showing how easily a sport can lose its home when that home barely looks like infrastructure at all.
Is Britain Running Out of Places to Ride?
Britain is not running out of countryside. It may be running out of places where off-road motorcycling is affordable, lawful and accepted.
Motocross must improve its environmental discipline, welcome recreational riders and demonstrate value to landowners and communities. Legal trail riding should be defended as a responsible countryside activity, not confused with riding anywhere that happens to be muddy. Trespass must remain unacceptable.
But authorities should also recognise the contradiction in closing supervised riding venues while spending money trying to stop motorcycles appearing in unsuitable places.
If Britain continues closing the gates to legitimate off-road motorcycling, it should not be surprised when a minority begins looking for gaps in the fence.