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Weymouth seafront cyclists banned

Prom cyclists face prosecution

You would be forgiven for thinking a nice cycle ride along your local promenade could soon be a thing of the past.

Having seen Portsmouth councillors banning riders, and Bournemouth imposing a strict 10mph speed limit along its prom, Weymouth cyclists are the latest to be hit.

Council chiefs and police are cracking down on anyone caught cycling on Weymouth seafront after police had previously said they would take a ‘common sense approach’ to cycling on the prom.

Police and council officers are stepping up patrols after receiving an increasing number of complaints about the number of cyclists who persist in using the Esplanade. And anyone caught cycling there after this Saturday will be taken to court.

A council spokesman said: “A public consultation resulted in cyclists being banned from the seafront altogether. The byelaw was relaxed during the consultation, which may have led some people to believe the relaxation was permanent and that cycling was allowed.” Why the public consultation was held in the first place is less clear: when we spoke to the council they told us that it would probably have been flagged as an issue due to numbers of complaints, rather than accident statistics.

The move comes after ‘growing concern’ expressed by Partners and Communities Together (Pact) groups, local residents and tourists regarding cycling on the promenade.

But members of the Dorset Cyclists’ Network said the decision could leave cyclists in danger as they are forced to take to the roads instead.

The network’s chairman Michael Evans, said: “It’s a shame that the council cannot find a way to allow cycling on the seafront side.

“The Government, including local government, actively encourages people to use bicycles instead of cars for fitness and exercise reasons as well as for the environment.

“Now that cycling is banned there it will only encourage cyclists to take to the busy main roads, which is more of a danger for them.”

Weymouth and Portland Borough Council’s spokesman for community safety, Councillor Ian James, said: “It’s important that people are made aware that the ban on cycling along the prom is still very much in force.”

Cycling along promenades is a contentious issue, particularly during the summer months, and the law regarding it seems is something of a grey area. Twenty year bans in Bognor Regis and Edinburgh have been lifted, and a ban on cycling along Morecambe’s promenade was lifted two years ago.

The CTC would like to see more promenades in the UK open to cyclists and advise local councils to make their decisions with consideration for pedestrians and other users of the area and to look at how it works in other places.

CTC’s network of local campaigners - Right to Ride Reps - are working with local councils to open up other promenades to cyclists. There are currently campaigns in Portsmouth and Llandudno.

A list of promenades open to cyclists is available from the Cycling England website, at www.dft.gov.uk/cyclingengland

 

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6 comments

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Grant36 | 14 years ago
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The new road being built is to relieve the back up of traffic heading in from Dorchester / North where the tailbacks can be miles long in the summer months and have an impact on visitor numbers etc - it will also assist with the increase numbers of traffic heading to Portland for the Olympic Sailing in 2012 - shame they never thought about creating better cycling routes instead as riding through the town and along the Esplanade is dangerous at the best of times due to volumns of traffic (both car and pedestrian. Sometimes riding on the promenade is the only viable and safe alternative and the Council seem to have been very short sighted on this matter !

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CotterPin | 14 years ago
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Weymouth is a town I know well - I grew up there. At the moment, they are just tearing up the countryside around the town to build a new road which will bring more motor traffic into the town centre. The new road is costing millions of pounds. I wonder how much they are spending on cycling infrastructure?

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Jon Burrage | 14 years ago
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bang goes any hope of the superb 'jumbled' triathlon returning then.

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dave atkinson | 14 years ago
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The council's handling of this issue is badly flawed. Firstly, it appears that they set up a consultation to adjudicate on the need for a cycling ban on the basis of complaints. Essentially that means that the ban is in place because of good old fashioned British whinging.

I'm absolutely, resolutely confident that were the ban looked at on the grounds of accident statistics, no ban would be in place. Why? because for all the 'you could have someone's eye out' mentality of pedestrians and their subsequent 'disgusted of' letters to the council, actual collisions causing injury between pedestrians and cyclists are extremely rare, especially in shared spaces. Accidents between cyclists and motor vehicles, on the other hand, are fairly common.

Some idiots cycle. Some idiots everything. it's not a reason to ban cycling any more than it's a reason to ban driving, or drinking, or football, or computers.

How many people have been hurt? show me the numbers.

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schilbach | 14 years ago
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Mmmm.....Cycling in Britain. Typical. Idiots!

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purplecup | 14 years ago
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nice to see they're replacing their 'common sense' policy with a 'makes no sense at all' policy. ffs.

i wonder how many actual incidents there have been on the prom - ie real, reported acidents and people being injured - as opposed to people just pissing and moaning about the 'dangerous' antics of cyclists? my guess: single figures

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