“We want to cycle over viaduct”, say locals

Lancashire people are calling for a 19th century railway viaduct to be opened up to cyclists.

Martholme Viaduct, between Padiham and Accrington, was once regularly used by local people, but has not reopened since the foot & mouth disease outbreak of 2001.

Although the viaduct itself is owned by Railway Paths Ltd, which offers access to hundreds of miles of old railways via its allied charity Sustrans, the access to the viaduct is owned by the nearby Bridge Heywood Caravan Park – who have rebuffed entreaties to provide access.

Local people say it would be an invaluable link for local walkers and cyclists, joining two traffic-free paths, and providing links into the Lancashire Cycleway and Leeds & Liverpool Canal. Campaigner Barbara Sharples told the Lancashire Telegraph that access from each end was crucial:

“The opening of this footpath would join up the Hyndburn and Padiham Greenways and enable safer circular walking and cycling routes. There’s no point in having the viaduct open if all you can do is walk up and down it.”

Read Parish Council says that the objections of Alex Hanson, owner of Bridge Heywood Caravan Park, are ill-founded.

“The landowner’s objections to the cycleway were based on his concerns that his site was marketed as quiet and secluded and that it would cause disturbance to his tenants causing them to leave. There does not appear to be any evidence to support this assertion. His impending addition of holiday let caravans and the highlighting of existing high demand for privately owned and holiday let caravans [in a recent planning application] appears to belie his assertions that his business and the local economy would suffer if access to the viaduct was reinstated. ”

And the local primary school has also weighed in, with headteacher Mark Dixon writing to Mr Hanson.

“Your Holiday Park users would value and gain massive benefits from direct access to a leisure facility such as the wider greenway system whilst on holiday to pursue activities such as cycling and walking with safe, off-road access to other towns and places. Please just let me know if you’d like me to unleash a torrent of persuasive letters from millions of local school children. Just give me the nod and I’ll get that sorted… as long as you promise to mark them all!”

Campaigners have now launched a petition and are seeking 1,000 signatures by the end of June. You can sign up here.

Portishead path upgraded

The main cycle route from Portishead towards Bristol has received an upgrade – as the first step of a plan to create a direct commuter route.

The path behind the Portbury Docks estate, part of NCN route 26, has been largely resurfaced with tarmac and the vegetation extensively cleared. The route runs beside the derelict Portishead branch railway, itself scheduled to be revived and reopened. 

North Somerset Council says that “we want to increase commuting by cycle in the area, for example between Portishead, Pill and the Portbury Dock area, and longer journeys such as Portishead and Pill to Bristol”.

The improvements, from Portishead to Pill, will be followed by a new roadside path from Pill to Abbots Leigh. The aim is “a continuous and attractive mainly off-carriageway cycle route connecting Portishead, the Portbury Dock area, Pill and Bristol”, at a total cost of £255,000.

Cyclists win in radical Tottenham Court Road plans

Camden Council’s ambitious plans to ban cars from Tottenham Court Road will see a new safe route created for cyclists.

Camden’s £26m plans for the area would see cars banned from the road between 8am and 7pm every day.

In itself this won’t create a cycle panacea – because the street will be busy with two-way bus traffic. However, the parallel roads of Gower Street and Shaftesbury Avenue will be given “protected cycle lanes”, creating a high-quality bike route from Euston to the West End.

This route will cross the existing popular Torrington Place route (‘Route 0’), opening up more opportunities for safe cycling in London. However, Camden’s proposals carefully state that the route will be “protected” rather than “segregated”, suggesting that lightweight rubber ‘armadillo’ barriers will be used rather than full Dutch-style kerbs.

Loading will be restricted to 10am-2pm on Gower Street, reducing the chance of the cycle lanes being blocked. There will be no bus services on the Gower Street route, and therefore no need to accommodate bus stops. Both the parallel route and Tottenham Court Road will be two-way streets, rather than one-way as at present, but Camden expects traffic to drop on both of them.

‘Busier than Heathrow’

The proposals have been prompted by the arrival of Crossrail at Tottenham Court Road station in 2018, which Camden claim will become “busier than Heathrow Airport”. Over 300,000 passengers are expected to use the station every day by 2026.

Other improvements on TCR will include pavements widened by up to 5m, tree planting, and new green spaces on side roads. The council believes that the road is not currently fulfilling its commercial potential, saying that adjacent businesses provide 20% of the West End’s floor space, but account for only 6% of its spend.

Consultation will begin on the project on 9th June. If it gets the go-ahead, work could be complete by 2018.

The initial plans have been welcomed by the Green Party, but public comments on the ITV website were predictably scornful, with one commenter asking “So how are all the shops gonna be stocked? If anything pedestrians should be banned from the road.”

See video of the proposals

Station bike parking gets better sooner

Cambridge railway station will benefit from 550 extra spaces this summer, ahead of the construction of a 3,000-space bike park. The new multi-storey park will open in December 2015, but the double-decker bike racks for it have already been purchased and will be installed next month. Cambridgeshire County Council’s Mike Davies told the Cambridge News that “the bikes should be more secure and the area should be much tidier”.

Rusty bridge to become a shiny cycleway

Work has started on transforming Plymouth’s rusting Laira Bridge into a shining new cycleway.

The railway bridge, last used by freight trains in the early 1990s, has long been earmarked to take cyclists away from the busy adjacent main road. Both Plymouth commuters and cycle tourists on the Devon C2C need to cross the River Plym on their way to the city centre.

After years of delays, scaffolding has now been erected to facilitate work on the bridge. The old structure is to be stripped back to the bare metal and repainted, then new railings and a new deck will be added. Street lighting will be installed to keep the route safe at all times of day.

The crossing is expected to open to cyclists in 2015. It will complete an almost continuous off-road route between Devonport and Stonehouse in the west, to Plymstock and Plympton in the east, via the city centre and East End; several cycle paths already converge at the bridge.