Walters Arena

Walters Arena in South Wales is run by the Walters Group and sits on the A4109 at Inter-Valley Road near Neath. According to the operator the site covers roughly 4,000 acres and goes back to a former opencast mine. Today it ranges from fire breaks and natural broadleaved woodland to mature pine and larch plantations, threaded with gravel roads and trails of widely varying gradient, plus several ponds and watercourses. The land is in use around 300 days a year: for rally testing and competition up to the Welsh round of the World Rally Championship, for 4x4 events, for driver training and for television production. Motorcycle riding runs through the BMW off-road training programme. The site also carries a wind farm with 13 turbines and a solar scheme. This is not a place you drop in on. The routes are long and hard to read, and cars are moving over the same tracks at very high speed alongside you. The operator states plainly that nobody should enter the facility without its knowledge and permission, because it may not be safe. So plan your visit as a booked, agreed appointment - either through the BMW off-road programme or by arranging it directly with the operator before you travel.