In your article highlighting the appalling state of the cycle route between Cadborough Cliff and Dumb Woman’s Lane (Rye News January 16), East Sussex Country Council state that they are unable to help with the maintenance of this route without external funding. My requests since then asking them to identify any sources of external funding which they have secured in the last five years to improve cycle routes anywhere in the county have been met with a deafening silence from County Hall.
Last week the government announced a package of £291m to build 300 miles of new walking, wheeling and cycling routes, with the aim of “making our towns, cities and villages happier, healthier, and greener places to live.”
Of the £38m allocated to the South East, East Sussex will receive £1.4m. Transport campaigners aren’t holding their breath expecting anything to be built: ESCC remains near the very bottom of Active Travel England’s Capability ratings in 2024, with their lack of leadership or joined-up thinking keeping them firmly stuck on Level 1 (of course this has consequences, given that those who do better are rewarded with more funds: Kent gained an extra £7.6m).
‘Lack of strong leadership’ will come as no surprise to those of us who’ve heard senior Tory councillors voice thoughts such as ‘I hate effing cyclists’ in the corridors of County Hall – not being able to grasp, sadly, that ‘cyclists’ could mean their niece wanting to get to karate class, their grandchildren wanting to play outside without being driven somewhere, or even (God forbid) they themselves getting some fresh air and exercise.
Cycle campaigners are also calling for the return of millions of pounds in funding plundered from the walking & cycling budget to fund road-building – monies which were meant to be ring-fenced for active travel! This included £2m from Hastings & Bexhill and £3m from Eastbourne and South Wealden which were re-allocated to road overspend in the 2018/2019 budget.
ESCC’s 2023/2024 budget included nothing for active travel, despite all the promises expressed in the Local Transport Plan. Literally, zero. This is despite decades of evidence that investment in walking and cycling infrastructure reduces congestion, improves air quality, is good for our physical and mental health, creates vibrant, attractive communities and results in increased footfall in local shops.
Previously, any funding ESCC has received has been spaffed away on design, reviews, processes, salaries and consultation. They are simply incapable of delivering anything approaching a joined-up active travel network.(The only significant route we’ve seen in the last decade has been the excellent route alongside the A27 – but this was built by National Highways, not ESCC).
Consultation has just closed on a new route through Bexhill but cyclists aren’t impressed.
“The whole route is wrong,” says Polly Gray, Rother District Councillor in charge of Promoting Liveable Neighbourhoods.
Whilst new crossings are welcomed, Councillor Gray also catalogues a litany of design errors including narrow, blind turns on twittens shared with pedestrians and disabled
users, uninviting and steep roads, and misguided start and finish points. “It is utterly dismaying that after all these years, with the finance supposedly already provided, this is the best they can come up with,” she adds. “It will the feed the idea that cycle routes are a waste of money and so no progress will ever be made.”
ESCC’s combined budget allocation for capital and revenue funding for roads in 2024/2025 is £56.4m, on top of which they had an extra £1.7m in re-allocated HS2 funding and another £21m last December to fill potholes. That’s a total of roughly £80 million.
Guess how much it would cost to improve that short stretch of cycle route we discussed earlier? (Not just any old ‘bridleway’, incidentally, but a key part of the National Cycle Route. John Grimshaw of Greenways & Cycle Routes says: “This has enormous potential as a wonderful recreational asset for the people of Rye, offering a traffic-free path where families could cycle. This link has so much potential that any sustainable transport policy would have delivered it as a matter of priority”).
£150,000.
Yes, that’s right.
In August 2023, ESCC asked Sustrans for help with what they like to call ‘significant and costly improvements’ to this route.
Your local authority, with a transport budget of £80 million, went with their begging bowl and asked a charity for the cash to fix it.
That’s how much they care about safer cycling, fewer cars, greener transport networks and lower emissions.
Image Credits: James Stewart .
It’s seems ridiculous that the section between Gibbet Marsh and the pumping station has been resurfaced a huge cost, I can only guess that ESCC own this section not Sustrans. The path is just an impassable dirt track
This is the path between the end of Barley Lane from Hastings to the ‘eco’ Bale House above Fairlight – a kilometre of wet clay for at least half the year. So people get there by car instead. Very much not in the eco spirit, it’s rarely a welcome end spot to a lovely Country Park walk from town – it’s a cafe and visitor centre in a car park with a view of the sea over glistening metal car roofs.
There has for years been a Sustrans design to make it a year-round shared walking and cycling route…
https://share.icloud.com/photos/05fYwgs0Nk8_MG6St7G7zHR3A
The almost impassable shared-use cycleway through Rye is National Cycle Route 2… the road equivalent of the M6.
If there are any references to this route left in any tourist literature they should be removed, as it’s dangerous and embarrassing.
Nick is right – some ESCC politicians have no interest in its repair, nor in wider cycling enhancements.
I’ve never understood some people’s antipathy towards cyclists. Every new cyclist means less car journeys. All research shows that cash spent on cycling leads to savings in physical and mental health care and other transportation costs.
If society doesn’t want to encourage more exercise, more walkers, more runners and more cyclists, then it’s broken.
David B, thank you for your comments. We also need to recognise that the more people cycle, the fewer cars there are on the roads so making them less congested for those that need to make car journeys on any particular day.
Last week the government announced a package of £291m to build 300 miles of new walking, wheeling and cycling routes.
Nearly £1 million a mile. Who is kidding who?
I spotted the news about the £291m package and found that it was given by Active Travel England (ATE), an arm of the Department of Transport. This money was granted not as a result of competitive bids from Highways Authorities like East Sussex CC but based on criteria invented by ATE. I have submitted an FOIA question to find out what these were. However, the strange result was that East Sussex got £1.4m, but Brighton and Hove, much smaller, got nearly the same, £1.3m, and West Sussex, £2.2m, Kent £5.7m. Hardly seems fair to me.
Stephen Hardy it is because our local transport authority ESCC is rubbish and has one of the worst delivery records and the lowest ATE ratings in England. Would any county councillors like to challenge me on this? I would welcome a public debate. You choose time and place, I will bring the facts.
Well done Nick. You make a very strong set of arguments and highlight most eloquently the appalling lack of ambition or understanding of the scale of change needed to transition to more environmentally responsible forms of getting around. Hopefully these councillors will be alive long enough to see how wrong their decisions have been. It cannot be nice to finish your career and realise your legacy of policy-making has messed up your children’s future even more.
Ian McKay
of Cycle Lewes