Campaigners ‘livid’ as active travel schemes set for the chop in York
Two major active travel schemes in York look set to be scrapped – provoking an outcry from campaigners and councillors.
A City of York Council report is recommending that a long-awaited path linking Wheldrake and Heslington should not go ahead on cost grounds, while plans for a new cycle lane and improved footways on the A1237 ring road bridges should be halted due to engineering constraints.
A York Cycle Campaign (YCC) spokesperson said: “We’re livid and we feel that citizens of York need to know that their council is deliberately rejecting the best active travel opportunity in decades.”
The council was awarded £350,000 by the government in the latest round of active travel funding – described as “meagre” when compared to other councils by York Labour.
YCC also highlighted the “glacial progress” on two other schemes deemed ‘very high priority’ by the council, Acomb Road and the Bootham A19 project.
The pedestrian and cycle link between Wheldrake and Main Street in Heslington has long been called for, but the council report claims it would cost up to £3m and would swallow the entire active travel project budget.
Walking and cycling charity Sustrans has suggested the council could use legal powers to gain access to the land needed for the scheme.
Wheldrake ward councillor Christian Vassie said: “I am urging the executive member for transport to instruct officers to use the money already assigned to this cycle path to follow the experts’ recommendations and get on with buying all the land necessary to deliver it.
“That way we will have an ‘oven-ready’ plan capable of being implemented as soon as funding is available.
“We will never reduce car use or need fewer car parks in York until we provide decent public transport and a viable safe cycle network to all residents, including those in the villages.”
The A1237 scheme would connect Rawcliffe with Poppleton, Knapton and provide a link to Manor School, but the council report states that it is “not viable” due to “practical engineering considerations of implementing civil construction works on the bridge”.
A YCC spokesperson said: “We believe that there are workable solutions to this problem, such as flexible wands, and that City of York Council are giving up on a vital active travel scheme far too quickly, leaving cyclists and pedestrians to continue dicing with death on a narrow footpath next to a 60mph road.”
The Liberal Democrats, who run the council along with the Greens, have set up a petition calling on the council to push ahead with the scheme.
Executive member for transport, Coun Andy D’Agorne, will consider the active travel report on Tuesday, July 19.
The report also recommends the council push ahead with city centre cycle parking improvements and creating ‘people streets’ outside Clifton Green and Badger Hill primary schools and in Ostman Road.