Hancock police and the NH Fish and Game Department have been working to stop motor vehicle traffic on Nick Shea Road after landowners complained. The Class A trail connects Brimstone Road and Antrim Road.
“People are misusing the road.. and not acting appropriately,” Police Chief Andrew Wood said. “The nickname for the Nick Shea trail is the ‘trash trail’ because people leave their trash all over the place,” he said. Nick Shea Road was redesignated as a Class A trail from a Class 6 road a handful of years ago, Wood said, but the right-of-way has a decades-long history of motor vehicle traffic.
Off-Highway Recreational Vehicles like ATVs, trail bikes, and snowmobiles are not allowed on Class 5 or 6 roads, and landowner permission is always required for their use, Wood said. Only abutting landowners are allowed to use vehicles on Class A trails. Registered vehicles are permitted on Class 6 roads. No motorized vehicles are allowed on the Nick Shea trail section, he said, only pedestrians, horseback riders, and bicycles.
The town is allowed to gate or block Class 6 roads and Class A trails, Wood said, but several Nick Shea Road landowners don’t want it blocked. In lieu of that, police and Fish and Game personnel have tried to mitigate the problem by putting up signs and speaking to motorists. At a Select Board meeting on April 20, Wood said the police had stopped and spoken to the owners of 10 or 15 vehicles.