Not-so Green Capital

What a dog's breakfast they're making of the Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone. Here's the latest of a string of lost opportunities....

A couple of key cycleway initiatives that were adopted and funded to help workers reach jobs in the TQEZ have been quietly – very quietly - ditched by the council and the Local Enterprise Partnership. It seems they needed the money to make up for overspends on the budget for the flagship parts of the scheme – Temple Way realignment and Arena access.

Cabinet had approved the spending on off-road cycleways back in March 2014. One was to be along the Conham towpath, the other a key realignment of the slow and hazardous Whitchurch Way, to take it beneath Bath Road on a disused railway track. 

Not the Whitchurch Way - a cyclepath in waiting...  and waiting

That one, part of NCN Route 3, had been part of the Cycling City project, too, but never made it to fruition then either.

Hard to say who made the decision this time, and whether they asked anyone else, elected or not. The news emerged in Mayor Ferguson's belated reply (see the comments) to a public forum question at the last full council meeting.    It seems that 'the council' secured the agreement of 'the LEP' to forget the two cycleways – but, whoever that might have involved, no-one seems to have thought it should be made public.

Especially in a European Green Capital.

Cycling City's land ambitions

Item 10 on the Cabinet's agenda on Thursday: to authorise compulsory purchase of land for Cycling City projects.

Two are for 'awkward bits' on the Bristol - Bath path. One (Berkely Place) is to widen the very narrow - and slightly threatening - stretch as you emerge from the Lawrence Hill overbridge. The other is to provide a short cut alongside the original Midland line just north of the waste transfer station, so that walkers and cyclists coming up from Temple Meads don't have to make the tortuous diversion around the Days Road amenity site. Both look pretty good to me.

The big one, though, is the 'Two Supermarkets' route, on National Route 3. Also known as the Callington Road Link, which now looks like it won't be turned into a motor road for years. It will take the cycle route directly along the old railway trackbed between Tesco Brislington and Sainsburys at Arnos Vale, passing under the Bath Road instead of that laborious crossing at Arnos Vale. Hooray! I hope they'll find intermediate access points, though.

All the CPOs are conditional on getting planning permission for the new route alignments first, so expect some delays there.

Maps in the appendices here (pdf)

A Proposal on the Path

Now we know that Cycling City may be expected to pay for the land in Brislington that the authorities want to build a main road on... this email goes to Cycling City boss Colin Knight, copied to his political masters:

".....as you probably know, at last week's Cabinet public questions Mark Bradshaw explained that the project could (I think would) include land purchase along the old railway cutting between Tescos and Sainsburys. This seems like a raid on the cycling budget, as the same land is being lined up for a major road project. I wonder, therefore, if any purchase using cycling money might be used to put the land in some kind of Trust. That would offer future protection for the route - and if it must eventually become a main road, at least the land sale value could be restored to the Trust to use for other cycling purposes."

Do you think I'll get a clear reply?

[ADDED 11pm:]

Impressive, this! A reply just received. And it is clear.

"......The likelihood is that we will have to buy the whole railway cutting for the section north of Tescos/Callington Rd. As you will know, the Callington Rd link is a long way off, but if land acquired for the cyclepath were to be used for a road or rapid transit then I think it would be right that money should be transferred to the cycle budget as recompense..... "

plus a bit more about other local aspects of the route that I'd raised. Thank you Colin.

Cycling City to pay for a major road project?

The Callington Road Link has been a new major road project for years, and it's close to actually being built - with a little bit of help from Cycling City.

At the West of England's annual 'Transport Forum' we were told they want to consult on the road link during 2009, then bid for government cash backing in 2010.

It's only a short link, from Tescos at Brislington along the cutting of the disused railway to a point near Sainsburys at Arnos Vale. What makes it significant - and a heavy transport route - is that it shortens the link between the M32 and south-west Bristol, especially when, as they fully intend, the controversial South Bristol link is built from Hengrove to Long Ashton.

Then at the end of October the cabinet welcomed a report from the Cycling City team that they want a cycleway down the same disused railway cutting, completing another link - from Whitchurch to Temple Meads via Arnos Vale. Certainly good news for me - I'm lazy enough to prefer this flatter, quieter route in to town.


BUT - the land is privately owned - by the Brethren, I'm told. Whether for a cycleway or for a road, someone's got to pay for it.

The answer came today from Cllr Bradshaw in a written reply to Glenn Vowles, who'd asked "Can you confirm to what extent the Cycling City budget will be used to fund property acquisition along the line of the proposed Callington Road Link...?"

"Yes, I can confirm that one option being considered is the acquisition of part of the disused railway line between Tesco Brislington and Arnos Vale..."

So - unless there's some arrangement to claw back the money later from the roads budget - it looks like Cycling City will be helping to pay for a major new road link.

Time for more questions, I think.