Illustration courtesy of Brentwood Council
Brentwood Council is consulting on its section of a cycle scheme to connect Harold Wood with Brentwood.
This has been driven and funded by the Highways England’s project to provide new slip roads to enable users of the A12 and M25 to by-pass the Brook Street roundabout.
This has meant that a new crossing over the junction has had to be provided to maintain access for walkers and cyclists and this has presented an opportunity to improve facilites.
The Havering section will connect the National Cycle Network route 136 at Harold Court Road east to the Brentwood boundary and this will be out for consultation shortly.
Our view is that while we welcome any improvements to cycling facilities, it is important that they should be safe and useful and unfortunately, we have doubts over this scheme.
Firstly, although the stated aim is to provide a route into Brentwood, the proposed route stops well short and only extends as far as Kavanaghs Road.
Secondly, the attractive illustration above shows a decent quality segregated path but this only extends for a short distance and the rest is shared-use path which considering the gradient of the hill and the number of junctions and private dwellings it crosses, this has to be a significant safety concern.
In short, we would really like to see a decent route provided here but it needs to meet the national standards, namely LTN 1/20, and so we think the plan needs more work.
The consultation is open until 13 November 2024 and you can have your say HERE.
I feel like you guys need to include specific points about what is good and whats bad so followers can easily copy your points when filling out the consultations. I responded to this one already a week ago and while it’s not great it’s better than nothing which we’re used to in Brentwood. Pavements are crumbling here meanwhile every road gets resurfaced.
In the consulation I mentioned the Mascalls Lane junction turn radius is wayyy too wide. Wider than any other so it’s clearly not necessary and by making it a tighter turn it’ll allow the shared pavement lights waiting area on the corner could be better and not need to cut into the small green area so much.
I also mentioned that all the “crossings” are uncontrolled and are just islands which can make it hard or take too long to find a gap to cross if you walk slow or have a buggy or wheelchair. I said they should all be zebra crossings.
I also said theres no information about parking enforcement because people already park fully on the pavement there so whats stopping them still fully parking on the pavement once its widened and designated as a cycle path too.
Basic things really and if you guys mentioned all these things in your post then more people will add it to their responces instead of just doing the tick boxes which of course will never have suggestions for things not in the design.
Hi Kate,
Thanks for your message and thanks also for your excellent input to the consultation.
Our own response to the consultation was detailed but probably would not make good reading for a news post so we’ve had to summarise to the main points namely the safety concerns and the lack of adhereance to LTN 1/20 which should be guiding all new cycle schemes.
Meanwhile, I will share your comments with our team and post back here.
Best regards
Hi, Just to follow up on this.
Yes, when we post news items, we have to keep them readable in order to get the message across so that means summarising quite drastically at times.
If you would like to discuss cycle related issues in more detail, we do have an email discussion forum that you’d be welcome to join.
Just get in touch and you’ll be sent an invitaion link.
Best regards