Where’s the Cycle Route?

Planning applications have started including active travel routes, but they are so often poorly thought out or turn out to be ‘optional’ for the developers.

It feels like so many active travel routes don’t link up to anywhere. Take the Leisure Village, the developers told me that they weren’t responsible for making sure their cycle route went anywhere, just that they built it to the edge of the Leisure Village!

How do you encourage people to cycle, if there are no safe routes for them to take? People end up driving to the Hive to pay to exercise on a static bike, rather than riding on safe cycle routes.

Active travel routes can aid all road users, but they need proper planning. East Cambridgeshire District Council imposed a condition on the building of the North Ely area that an off-site cycle route would be provided from King Edgar Close to Egremont Street, but there seems to be a little bit of a disconnect between what can be achieved and what the developers are obliged to provide. The purple section is the route in question.

The first section from King Edgar Close has not created a significant problem, although lots of people in Orchard estate were concerned the pavement outside their properties was being removed when developers started measuring up!

The problem arises because no one noticed the narrowing of Lynn Road, nor the car parking along most of the road as you approach the City Centre.

That gave the developers a get out clause:

There are insufficient footpath/road widths on Lynn Road in the vicinity of Egremont Street to provide improvements all the way down Lynn Road to this junction. The Highway Authority raised concerns in 2017 that Lynn Road has a significant amount of on street marked and kerbed parking bays in sections nearest the City, the removal of which would result in a high amount of displaced parking, which would raise highway safety issues elsewhere.

The developers claim they can only build a cycle route as far as King Edgar Close, a nice get out reducing their costs!

But they could build the route if they so desired. Parking may be displaced if they build on the western side of Lynn Road, but what about the eastern side? Would parking simply be displaced over the road, could they build the cycle route on the western side?

Or how about looking at alternate routes that segregate the routes – perhaps taking the route through to the New Barns/Prickwillow Road/Newnham Street junction.

Instead, the developers rely upon public upset at loosing parking spaces, and a bad planning condition to get away with providing a sub-standard scheme.

Orchard Estate residents will be pleased to see the route on the eastern side of Lynn Road near their homes but then moves to the western side after the roundabout. It then comes back to why can’t the whole route be completed?

Who is stopping the cycle route? I’ve asked why it hasn’t been sorted – let’s see what the Councils have to say.

Alison Whelan

Where’s the Cycle Route?

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