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news
Holt Road cycling scheme (Norfolk County Council)Cycling group accuses council of forcing cyclists onto "dangerous, traffic-choked" road, as "anti-social behaviour" and "security" fears see plan for cycle route link scrapped
A cycling campaign has questioned a council's decision to U-turn on plans for a 75-metre-long path linking a cycle route to quiet streets nearby, the scrapping of the cut-through link meaning that riders will be forced to make a longer journey on a "dangerous, traffic-choked" alternative instead.
The controversy surrounds Norfolk County Council's £1.9m project to boost cycling and walking on the A140 Holt Road. A new path will be extended out towards Hellesdon, with the initial plan including a 75m path, allowing users to cut through from the busy main road into the quiet streets of Hellesdon.
However, the path has since been removed from the plans, meaning cyclists will have to make a longer route along busier roads, as demonstrated by the Norwich Cycling Campaign's illustration below.
In an in-depth blog post, the campaign's chairman, Peter Silburn, said the removal of the linking route would force cyclists to use the "dangerous, traffic-choked Middletons Lane" via a "long detour".
The cut-through "made a lot of sense", he added. Mr Silburn also explained how he submitted a Freedom of Information request and was told that, of the respondents to the council's consultation, 45 had expressed support versus just 14 in opposition.
The cycling campaign's chairman also suggested that Conservative councillor Shelagh Gurney had "dramatically" changed her mind and "supported the scheme" previously.
"This raises serious questions about accountability and democracy," Mr Silburn continued. "Councillor Gurney is supposed to be representing the wishes of her constituents, yet has taken action that goes against those wishes."
However, speaking to the Norwich Evening News, Cllr Gurney has disputed the claim she had supported the cut-through and said there are fears it could lead to anti-social behaviour and pose a security threat for locals.
"I have not 'inexplicably' changed my mind," she told the local newspaper. "I remain fully supportive of the yellow pedalway extension except for the Bush Road link, which after a meeting with highways officers has been deleted and common sense has prevailed.
"It was proposed to cut through allotments which did not receive a welcome reception from a considerable number of residents living in this vicinity. Not everyone was in a position to respond to the consultation and directed their concerns and comments to me directly where there were also issues about anti-social behaviour, security and parking."
Mr Silburn is less sure of the claim that Cllr Gurney heard the voices of her constituents and said it was "disappointing" that she had not "respected the outcome of the consultation" and took action "that goes against her constituent's wishes".
The Norwich Cycling Campaign regularly speaks out about issues facing cyclists in the Norfolk city, most recently back in October when NHS workers joined cyclists in criticising "last-minute changes" to a roadworks plan which would sever a popular cycling route at a busy roundabout, instead adding more lanes to encourage "more and faster" motor traffic.
The campaign also recently called out the council for allowing traffic in a popular bus lane that had halved collision numbers and reduced journey times.
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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13 comments
I wonder if diverting funds, ahem, I mean the cycle route to a trunk road is a way a way for the council to fix pot holes and repaint the road for motor vehicles, ahem, I mean bicycles?
Define the security and antisocial behaviour that could occur if cyclists are allowed to use a safer cut-through? Is it akin to saying "we don't want travellers here because they are all thievin g88 b88" or "we don't want them forinners cos they'll take my giros" etc. ? They don't even try to hide their prejudices when it comes to the minority group that is cyclists.
"......and common sense has prevailed."
We hear the "common sense" argument a lot from politicians, and it's just them justifying their opinion by pretending that it's clearly the right thing to do. It's nothing of the sort however, just them making a blatantly political decision in the face of overwhelming facts.
I typically dislike the casual use of the term NIMBY, because at best it's not specific enough to be helpful, and at worst it's dismissing what are, sometimes, reasonable concerns that could and/or should be addressed with a bit of thought. However, looking at this scenario, it looks a lot like a few very local residents, or people from the allotment, complaining about a proposal that will bring a lot of benefit for not much effort, because they are worried about the riff-raff.
There's no harm in raising potential security issues, but a bit of extra fencing could solve that for those who haven't allowed themselves to get overly worked up.
A new path here could open up access to a lot of other routes away from the main road for pedestrians as well as cyclists, and it would be a massive wasted opportunity not to keep this small section in the plan.
"A great many people have told me..." - often they all speak with a voice that sounds very like your own...
It's those consultations again! Sounds like the councillor decided this one was wrong this time.
They never seem to help. Everyone wants one, but it turns out they give the wrong results every time. The wrong people give the wrong answers, or they were done in secret (a reverse Douglas Adams - they only put this in thirty-foot high letters of fire on top of a mountain) so "we weren't consulted". Or the council put the wrong options in, or failed to do the groundwork first (getting most people on-board with the general idea, so then it's just "how").
I think it's fair that council's don't always need to follow the results of a consultation as if they are a For/Against referendum. IMO, they are better used to give locals the opportunity to raise points that might have been missed by the council officers or their consultants.
Mainly it would be some kind of local knowledge, that might not have made it into the sort of records that are reviewed. These days accessibility should automatically be considered, but if not, then they should rightly expect a lot of 'how am I supposed to get a pram up those steps' and similar. On the other hand, 'it might be used by some wrong-uns' is not fresh insight.
Ultimately, politicians will do politics, and if they think their core vote won't like something, then it doesn't really matter if it will benefit most of the non-voting, or already voting for someone else, community. This is where officers need to keep good records of the decision-making process, and journalists get to ask pertinent questions so that voters can see what's going on, and other elected members at the council get involved.
Well, complaints about "they did a consultation then ignored the result" do cut both ways, I agree - and they aren't referenda.
Ultimately I believe they should be a bit like referenda in big politics - do not ask a question if you don't already know the answer you will get.
So for consultations it's all about putting in the work before to ensure that you know you've reached people as best you can. (This can be the hard part - people are often not interested to hear / get involved because "they never listen to us anyway"). And explained things, got people on-side, picked up on some local nuances etc.
All that before doing the actual consultation, so you're not "surprised by the depth of opposition" and it's more of a "details about how it happens" as you say in your first paragraph.
But as you also say - I may be idealising things there!
That hard part (that we don't often get) is a consultation though. If you want to have some sort of referendum-type exercise off the back of that, it might be appropriate, but it doesn't make that a consultation.
Perhaps it should be (e.g. more of an information-gathering exercise) - all ones I've seen have definitely had an element of "pick this or that" though. But I've not run one, just tried to keep informed about a few local ones.
If they are done with a "choose option A, B or C" plus comments, rather than "we're thinking of x, what are your views on this part, that part" ... then I do think it should be "do the consulting (polling opinion, local sessions to explain but also gather views) before the consultation".
That's the point, though - mostly what we get are not consultations, even though they're labelled as such. They're what organisations that are mandated to hold consultations do instead so that they can pretend that they've had one.
Rather than saying we should redefine consultations to be referenda (and by the way there's some hard work you really ought to do first), we should be holding feet to the fire and demanding proper consultations, since that's the more important bit.
"It was proposed to cut through allotments which did not receive a welcome reception from a considerable number of residents living in this vicinity."
They're not as green as they are cabbage-looking.
Norwich cycling said it doesn't cut through and uses an exsiting path parallel with the allotment border.
https://bsky.app/profile/norwichcycling.bsky.social/post/3lgnof5hds223
What's the betting that a councillor lives in one of the two houses alongside that disused path??