Cycle path a mistake (From Penarth Times)

Cycle path a mistake

11:44am Thursday 21st March 2013 in Letters

HOW right is Christopher Nellins over the over-engineered cycle path in Dingle Park being a waste of money (Penarth Times, 14 March)?

Remember it’s a hang-over from the previous Vale Council, railroaded by deputy leader Cllr Jeff James. They had abundant funds to spend on ‘core’ cycle routes linking to Pont y Werin.

Rather than create proper safe routes to Dinas Powys and Penarth Town, they patched up a meandering route up the zig-zags to the Billybanks, down Arcot St and through to the gardens and over the Ash Path to the the Murch.

The real cycle and walking routes that we could have had were: a) one from Tesco’s car park up through the woodland to Hills terrace, bypassing the narrow and busy Windsor Rd through Cogan.

b) one from the Merrie Harrier alongside the field south of the railway to Caerleon Road and Castle Drive, bypassing the narrow and busy Eastbrook Road.

Both obvious routes, and the woodland hillside route was assessed for us as feasible by David Judd, renowned for cycling projects in south-west Wales. Yet Jeff James and the officers suppressed both routes. Instead, government money for core routes (SEWTA’s £600,000) is disappearing on over-costed ‘secondary’ routes like Dingle Park, as the Welsh govenrment sets no criteria on value for money and on public acceptability – their failure over the daft Eastbook cycleway.

The new Labour Council had a chance to change this and work together with cyclists and pedestrians for schemes that we really need, of appropriate scale and cost. Let’s hope their officers’ undemocratic behaviour over the Sully Terrace railway path will jolt them into action.

Max Wallis Barry & Vale Friends of the Earth Via e-mail