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Highways England to spend £17m on cycling projects alongside A30 in CornwallA30 (via StreetView)

Highways England to spend £17m on cycling projects alongside A30 in Cornwall

30km of projects due to be delivered by spring 2021
by Alex Bowden
Sat, Feb 23, 2019 12:00
7

Highways England has announced £17m of investment in walking and cycling projects alongside the A30 in Cornwall. This will be supplemented by a further £2m from Cornwall Council with the schemes due to be delivered by spring 2021.

BikeBiz reports that the funding will help create an off-road cycling and walking network linking Truro with St Agnes, Perranporth and Newquay.

There will be 30km of routes. Projects include:

  1. St Agnes to Threemilestone (via Chiverton Cross): the proposal is for a reliable and safe crossing of the junction linking the B3277 from St Agnes with the A390.
  2. St Newlyn East to Carland Cross: the proposal is to connect the existing National Cycle Network (NCN) Route 32 at St Newlyn East with a new traffic-free path on Newlyn Downs and further complement and strengthen the case for the Perranporth to Newquay project.
  3. Trispen to Idless: the proposed cycle link between Trispen and Idless will make use of a designated ‘quiet lane’ and traffic-free path through woods and connect with NCN Route 32.
  4. Perranporth to Newquay: the proposal is the reinstatement of a dismantled railway line as a multi-use trail for walkers, cyclists and horse-riders.

Cornwall Council will lead the projects with work due to start later this year.

Geoff Brown, Cornwall Council Cabinet Portfolio holder for Transport said: “This major funding from Highways England provides us with a wonderful opportunity to provide some great opportunities for cycling.

“The routes will complement other cycle routes and trails across Cornwall. The cycle network will reach out to towns and villages and link with where residents live and work, connecting our communities and joining up access to the services that people want and need.

“Cycling also helps address congestion and air quality issues and plays a key role in promoting a healthy life for our residents, and we look forward to working with our partners at Highways England and with the local communities, on delivering these exciting schemes.”

The projects are being undertaken thanks to Highways England’s ring-fenced cycling designated fund. The company’s target is to deliver 150 cycling schemes by the end of the Road Investment Period (2015-2020).

Cornwall
Highways England
A30
Alex Bowden

Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.

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7 comments

Avatar
NPlus1Bikelights | 5 years ago
0 likes

If they tarmac  the disused railway line it will outdo anything Sadiq Khan has done with marketing, new signs and some paint in London.

Avatar
growingvegtables | 5 years ago
0 likes

Took two minutes on Google Maps

- none of the routes are "alongside the A30".

- two are at right angles to the A30 ... and go?  Nowhere?  From?  Nowhere.  

 

Great for pootlers - and I'm an inveterate pootler :-). 

 

But this is NOT "£17m of investment in walking and cycling projects alongside the A30 in Cornwall."  It looks more like an "end-of-the-financial-year,-oh-God,-we-haven't-spent-the-budget-yet" half-arsed, "desperate-department" project.  Oh ... and let me guess, a substantial part of the £17m has already evaporated up the arse of the PR/media element.

Avatar
BehindTheBikesheds | 5 years ago
2 likes

blah blah blah, this won't do squat in terms of increasing cycling because it won't be enough and will as nappe says will use routes that are circuitous/long way round as per always which is one of the known problems.

Shared lanes are crap/not acceptable and a cycle lane MUST be at least 2 metres wide in each direction, this means that people can either ride side by side in safety plus give opportunity for safe overtaking of slower users.

And as we know that thinking does not happen so what will be provided will be virtually pointless and not encourage cycling between towns, nor make it significantly safer, same old.

Avatar
nappe | 5 years ago
5 likes

That photo of the A30...the only serious way of providing useful cycling links is to take 1.5m of the verge on both sides and tarmac it with a kerb separating it from the rest of the road, anything else is playing about with routes that go the long way round and providing places for people to walk their dogs.

Avatar
brooksby replied to nappe | 5 years ago
2 likes

nappe wrote:

anything else is playing about with routes that go the long way round and providing places for people to walk their dogs.

Well, yeah, but the council gets to tick the box marked 'Provided cycling provision ' so everybody's happy (well, except for the actual cyclists...)

Avatar
burtthebike replied to brooksby | 5 years ago
1 like

brooksby wrote:

nappe wrote:

anything else is playing about with routes that go the long way round and providing places for people to walk their dogs.

Well, yeah, but the council gets to tick the box marked 'Provided cycling provision ' so everybody's happy (well, except for the actual cyclists...)

And as we all know, actual cyclists are an ungrateful lot.  Spend all this money on them, and they still ride on the road, and whinge about the lovely cycle facilities we've provided.

Avatar
brooksby | 5 years ago
3 likes

Spending £566000 per km, eh? I imagine that'll buy quite a lot of white paint..,

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