Dear all

I have written to the Joint Member Panel for the North Herts Highways Partnership, to express our disappointment at their decision to press ahead with this scheme, without taking a single meaningful comment into consideration. The letter has been copied to both Oliver Heald MP and Peter Lilley MP. We had already written to Herts Highways, as you will have seen in my previous letter. Both letters can be found on the Cycle Hitchin file space. If you are not signed up, you can join here.

I have already asked people to contact their councillors and MP to raise these issues. I am not one of Peter Lilley’s constituents, which always makes life difficult when raising issues in Hitchin, so can people make a special effort and ensure that Mr Lilley is asked to take this up.

Just in case people are thinking that it would be nice to have a cycle path next to Bedford Road, to get you out of the traffic, we actually had no problem with that as a general principle. The problem is that once you take people off the road, you have to make sure that they can get back on it again, safely and conveniently. You also have to make sure that people can cross side turnings safely, ensure that there are no hazards or obstructions etc. None of this has been done. To get from the path into Oughtenhead Way you will have to stop and wait at three sets of lights, negotiate a sheep pen and ride down a narrow pavement. Sound good to you ? It doesn’t to me, and since we had given them detailed instructions on how to avoid creating the problem there is no excuse for it.

Letter to North Herts Highways Partnership Joint Member Panel (elected councillors) here.

I will put the letter to Herts Highways (designers) in the same folder when I get home tonight.

Regards
 
 
 
Alasdair DV Massie CEng MIStructE

CTC Right to Ride Representative, North Herts

CTC is Britain’s largest cycling organisation with 70,000 members. Formed in 1878 we have actively campaigned for better, safer roads, locally and nationally since our inception.

We have a large and active section for North Herts and Stevenage.

wwww.ctc.org.uk            www.northhertsctc.org.uk