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Great Glen cycle path cash welcomed

Local campaigner and cycling writer hopes it will; encourage more people in Highlands onto two wheels

A cycle campaigner and writer from the Highlands has said that the Great Glen Cycle Route, last week given three quarters of a total of £3.9 million funding provided to cycling by the Scottish Government, will not only benefit tourists, but also provide much needed links between local communities along its route from Inverness to Oban.

John Davidson, cycling correspondent for the Inverness Courier, editor of the Active Outdoors supplement of that newspaper and sister titles in the Highlands and author of a guide to Walking and Cycling in Inverness and the Highlands, said: "It’s great to see this long sought after route finally getting towards completion.

"It will be great for cycle tourism and also for locals to get about between communities without having to resort to using their car for every journey.

"Hopefully it will encourage more people to get out of their bikes across the Highlands."

£2.6 million of the £3.9 million funding announced last week by Scottish Government Transport Minister Keith Brown will go on the Corran Ferry to Inverness section of what will become National Cycle Network route 78, the Great Glen cycle path. A further £400,000 will be spent on a link from Appin to Oban.

Last week, American news channel CNN named Scotland as the best tourist destination in the world to visit during 2013, with outdoor routes such as the West Highland Way listed among its leading attractions.

Describing the funding as a “windfall,” John Lauder, Sustrans Scotland director, said that while he welcomed the investment, he wanted to see greater planning when it came to providing increases in investment.

Quoted in The Herald, he added that the Great Glen Cycle Way "will help provide a planned, signed and mapped alternative to using trunk roads between Oban and Inverness.

“It shows we are moving in the right direction and that the Transport Minister has got confidence this investment is producing results."

David Le Feu of Spokes, the Edinburgh and Lothians cycling campaign, told the Herald: "Given that we have this target of making 10% of all journeys by bike by 2020, having just 1% of the transport budget spent on cycling is just hopeless.

"If you look at European countries that have been successful in achieving a significant increase in cycling levels, 5% is a much more appropriate figure."

According to Mr Le Feu, Edinburgh City Council is the only local authority of the 32 in Scotland that has pledged to devote 5 per cent of its transport budget to cycling.

In November, representatives of ten separate cycling organisations covering the Highlands and Moray called on the Scottish Government and local authorities to “to help bring about a Scandinavian-style cycle culture to the north of Scotland.”

In a press release published on Mr Davidson’s blog – he was there in his capacity as a volunteer ranger for Sustrans – organiser Ged Church of the Highland Cycling Campaign said: “These desires will be recognised by many. It’s surely time to get our politicians to recognise the immense value of the cycling habit to community health, well-being and the environment, and act rather than talk.”

Mr Davidson added: “The government has worthy targets but when it comes to investing in their own ideas, they fail to back that up with action. A change in attitude is needed from the very top, so that cycling and walking options are a top priority in any development.

“Study after study shows how money invested in cycling and walking saves on health spending but unfortunately politicians are obsessed with short-termism and fail to see the bigger picture.

“We are calling on them to invest for the good of our communities, to help reduce congestion, improve health and well-being and create a safer, better connected cycle network for people of all ages and abilities to benefit from for the long term.”

The next meeting of the Highland Cycle Campaign will be on Thursday 31 January at 6.30pm at the Velocity cycle café in Inverness.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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offshore_dave | 11 years ago
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As much as I don't want to bring politics into this, I truly believe that if we can gain Independence then our priorities as a nation will change.

Scotland and England already have different priorities and while Westminster is content to spend billions on nuclear weapons and dodgy wars, Scotland is more likely to spend the money on capital projects which benefit us more at a social level.

I think that the spending just announced indicates where we should be heading although I appreciate that, while many people want more spending at a local level, this is easier said than done.

Certainly, the finance minister is a keen cyclist and I believe that he used to commute between Blairgowrie and Perth on his bike on a regular basis which is about 15 miles each way.

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a_to_the_j | 11 years ago
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+1 offshore_dave

as much as i would not want to pour water on this good piece of news, investment is *really* needed not in Tourist routes but in actual commuter routes for rural towns and villages, that will not only benefit day-to-day cyclists, but also remove cars from the congested and fast trunk A roads that Scotland is well known for, which in turn will mean its better for Tourism and for cyclist Touring Scotland *NOT* on the allocated main routes as above.

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offshore_dave | 11 years ago
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A problem we have locally is that there is much goodwill towards providing a cycle path between our village and the nearest town and there seems a fair likelihood that it will happen.

However, the regular cyclists in our village (myself included) will probably not use it because it is such an indirect route to where we want to go.

It would be impractical and too expensive to create a dedicated cycle lane along side the existing main road.
However, the road itself is pretty unsafe for children and inexperienced cyclists and I wouldn't want my kids to use it.

The proposed path will, in all likelihood, be utilised more by dog walkers and pushchair users.

Overall, I am glad that these funds have been committed to the long distance route between Inverness and Oban and I think it will be a very valuable route for the Highlands in terms of tourism.

I will definitely ride it with my family.

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