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Edinburgh calls for views on new cyclesport facilities

Four options for combinations of BMX, road, track & speedway including possible velodrome and closed road circuit

City of Edinburgh Council has called for public input on its plans to create a hub for cyclesport in Hunter's Hall Park, to the south-east of the city centre.

A general plan to build some sort of facility in the park was announced in 2013, but the city council has now come up with four options involving different combinations of facilities, and is asking for the public's opinions

The park may get an outdoor velodrome, a BMX track, a road circuit and a cycle speedway track.

Cycling facilities will have to compete for space with general sports pitches. A road circuit, for example, will limit the number of grass pitches at the park, but the council says such proposals include all-weather '3G' artificial pitches which can handle many more games per day than grass pitches, so the venue's capacity would not be reduced.

The council therefore lists four options:

Option 1: A cycle speedway track and BMX facility, with one full-size 3G pitch and one smaller 3G kickpitch.

Option 2: A cycle speedway track, a BMX facility, plus a closed road circuit and an outdoor velodrome. This also has two full-size 3G pitches.

Option 3: A cycle speedway track, a BMX facility, plus a closed road circuit and two full-size 3G pitches, but no velodrome.

Option 4: A cycle speedway track, a BMX facility, plus an outdoor velodrome and two full-size 3G pitches, but no closed road circuit.

It was announced last year that Edinburgh's Meadowbank Velodrome will be demolished when the Meadowbank Sports Centre is redeveloped.

Britain's most successful Olympian, track cyclist Chris Hoy, began his track career at the Meadowbank Velodrome after crossing over from BMX. He said last year that he would like to have seen Meadowbank saved, but later welcomed the news of a velodrome at Hunter's Hall Park.

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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OldRidgeback | 9 years ago
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It'd be great. Edinburgh really needs a new cycling facility. There was a proposal for a BMX track or skatepark at Inverleith Park some years back, but that was shouted down by the local NIMBYs living nearby. Instead the old boating pond was turned into a wildlife habitat, attracting lots of rats. I hope the NIMBYs were pleased with that result.

The plans to build a BMX track down near the Musselburgh race course stalled some time ago. There are some decent MTB track in and around the city and the run from Cramond-Granton is great for roadies, just maybe not on a windy day!

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harrybav replied to OldRidgeback | 9 years ago
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OldRidgeback wrote:

attracting lots of rats.

Lots of rats in the newtown for sure!

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