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Barriers on National Cycle Route bridge in Radcliffe, Greater Manchester (Walk Ride GM)“How exactly is a disabled person supposed to access this bridge?”: Campaigners call on council to remove “unlawful, discriminatory” barriers from National Cycle Route
A council is facing calls to remove a set of barriers located at the entrance to a bridge, which forms part of the National Cycle Network, after local campaigners branded them “unlawful” and “discriminatory”.
The barriers were recently installed on a bridge in Radcliffe, Greater Manchester, replacing another set of metal barriers which similarly stretched across most of the cycling and wheeling entrance to the bridge, seemingly in a bid to counteract what the local police and Bury Council have described as the “anti-social and inconsiderate” actions of off-road motorcyclists in the area.
In August 2023, Greater Manchester Police’s Bury North officers warned that motorcyclists causing a nuisance would be punished and their motorbikes seized, following several complaints from residents to neighbourhood officers that young people were “causing problems around the town”.
However, like we’ve seen across the UK in recent years, the means of deterring such anti-social behaviour – namely, the introduction of barriers and restricted access points on cycle and shared used paths – has been heavily criticised by local active travel campaigners, who argue that these measures “discriminate” against people who use wheelchairs or cycles as mobility aids.
How exactly is a disabled person supposed to access this bridge in Radcliffe? @BuryCouncil
Absolutely shocking breach of the Equalites Act. pic.twitter.com/Z42sXpcu6l
— Walk Ride GM (@WalkRideGM) March 18, 2024
Posting a photo of the barriers, situated on National Cycle Route 6 and to the left of another set of barriers for pedestrians, on Twitter this week, Greater Manchester-based active travel group Walk Ride GM asked: “How exactly is a disabled person supposed to access this bridge in Radcliffe?”
Describing the barriers’ introduction as an “absolutely shocking breach” of the Equality Act 2010, Walk Ride GM also confirmed that they have submitted a Freedom of Information request to Bury Council, in a bid to ascertain the local authority’s legal justifications for the barriers.
“This bridge is part of the National Cycle Route and provides a crucial connection for the community in Radcliffe,” a Walk Ride GM spokesperson told road.cc.
“The introduction of barriers here discriminates against people who may use a wheelchair or cycle as a mobility aid. This barrier is unlawful and must be removed by the council. We have sent an FOI asking the council to answer themselves on this issue.”
One of the group’s members, Harry Gray, also posted on Twitter that the barriers were “an absolute death trap”, adding: “How this passed any sort of safety audit is beyond me.”
Local cyclists, meanwhile, pointed out that other barriers are present at the opposite end of the trail, with Philip noting that “I was on there today and there were lads on motorbikes, so they’ve not worked either way.”
“A conscious, deliberate, extra cost breach,” Rob added. “They went to considerable effort to breach the law here.”
> Wheels for Wellbeing and the barriers disabled cyclists face on the road.cc Podcast
In September, after a Newcastle-based cyclist complained that barriers designed to prevent anti-social behaviour were stopping him from accessing a cycle path on his recumbent, disabled people’s cycling organisation Wheels for Wellbeing criticised the tendency for local authorities to use anti-social activity as a pretext for restricting accessibility and said that “we are finding time and again that disabled people are denied access to spaces that other people can access”.
“So many physical barriers have been put in which are far more effective at preventing legitimate users from using paths and open spaces than they are at preventing the problems that are the pretext for the barriers,” a spokesperson told road.cc.
“Barriers on cycle routes are preventing disabled people from making local journeys using all sorts of mobility aids, and restricting access to exercise, recreation, and natural spaces, which are all so important for physical and mental health.
“If there really are problems with abuse of paths, it is a policing matter. Authorities need to make it easier to report problems to the police, not discriminate against disabled people with inaccessible barriers.”
Cycling infrastructure planning guidance for local authorities, issued by the Department for Transport, states that routes must be accessible to recumbents, trikes, handcycles, and other cycles used by disabled cyclists.
“Schemes should not be designed in a way that access controls, obstructions, or barriers are even necessary,” the guidance says.
“The built environment should be accessible to all, including young people, older people, and disabled people. Design should begin with the principle that all potential cyclists and their machines should be catered for in all cycle infrastructure design.”
Despite these guidelines, we have reported on several occasions over the past year alone where councils have been criticised for signing off on potentially discriminatory infrastructure.
As noted above, Wallsend-based cyclist Alastair Fulcher sent a legal letter to Newcastle City Council in September 2023, in a bid to challenge the lawfulness of barriers on a National Cycle Route which prevent him from accessing the path on his recumbent.
Fulcher has Parkinson’s Disease which affects his balance, core strength, and ability to walk, but is able to continue to enjoy cycling thanks to his tricycle.
However, the 61-year-old is unable to ride the National Cycle Route 72 past Pottery Bank due to the barriers installed to again prevent motorcyclists accessing the route.
“The fact is, as I have discovered, cycle paths are riddled with barriers such as these,” he said. “It is just that this one is so important, being on an internationally recognised cycle path. The location of this barrier completely denies access to me to all of the network of cycle tracks west of this point.
“On a bicycle, you can ride all the way to Carlisle on mostly quiet cycle paths. For me, that's not possible on my recumbent.
“I do not believe the motorcycle nuisance at Pottery Bank is so bad that a disabled cyclist should have to pay the price for tackling the issue.”
And in February, Bolton Council was criticised for installing “discriminatory” barriers on a cycling and walking route in the town, with anti-social behaviour once again used as the justification. However, the council, while later admitting that no equality impact assessment was carried out pre-installation, nevertheless insisted that it has acted in accordance with design guidance.
“The real issue is that the barriers discriminate against people who use many types of cycle, including adapted cycles for users with disabilities, and the council’s failure to follow due process,” cyclist and Bolton Active Travel Forum Technical Review Group member Dr Grahame Cooper told road.cc last month.
“The Public Sector Equality Duty, placed on public sector bodies by the Equality Act 2010, means that the council is required to assess the impact of the changes on protected groups such as disabled, elderly, and pregnant people and record the reasons why the perceived need for the barrier outweighs that duty.
“They have admitted that they have not done that and there is no Equality Impact Assessment. This is particularly important if they are departing from national guidance. Before the barrier was installed, the 3.5-metre-wide path was perfectly adequate for shared cycling and walking use. Now that the barriers are in, there is conflict between the needs of people walking and cycling due to the bottleneck.”
And just over a week later, a project officer at Sustrans – the organisation responsible for the creation of the National Cycle Network – called for the removal of all barriers on cycle paths, and criticised the “fear-mongering” evident in attempts by local authorities to quell anti-social behaviour.
“Illegal motorbike use is a perception, there’s a lot of fear-mongering around it which may not actually reflect reality,” Hamish Belding said.
“Often the barriers are put in as an automatic sort of thing when paths are built and not in recognition of whether there’s a problem or not. I know this area [Tonteg, South Wales] very well. I know that we don’t have a motorbike problem here and the benefit of removing the barrier far outweighs any risk of antisocial motorbike behaviour.”
road.cc has contacted Bury Council for comment.
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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35 comments
The idea that barriers and restrictive bollards across cycleways are justified because of a tiny number of people riding illegal motorbikes is an interesting one. I live in Yate that is featured in the cycling movie, Chasing the Sun. In North Yate all routes are blocked, and it is considered acceptable that cyclists should lift bikes over and around barriers despite there being no illegal motorbikes (other than the large bikes racing at high speed on roads at night). South Yate has an important route next to the railway line (on the edge of the common). The route is only reasonably accessible by someone less than 1,5m tall and riding a gravel bike, because of barriers to prevent motorbikes getting on the common. But there is a 2m wide barrier free path allowing easy access to the common for any vehicle, convenient from the A432. As a part of consultation, l was counting passing cyclists with a senior road engineer when a person with no helmet or number plate did a high speed wheelie on a motorbike past us. There was no suggestion at all that there should be barriers put across the A432 to prevent access by illegal motorbikes riding dangerously past pedestrians on the A432.
BTW, l have been campaigning against these barriers for 5 years, and now at 67, l use both a city bike, and a road bike, as mobility aids.
We had triple barriers at either end of what should have been a convenient route to town. They prevented anything but pedestrians going that way. I wrote to council officers and councillors many times to try to get them removed. One sunny day a spotted a family out for a stroll, the group included a young looking grandfather in a wheelchair. I explained the problem and my campaign then I videoed the gentleman trying to get through the barrier. Inevitably he got stuck and two family members had to pick him, and the chair, up to move him. The video was sent to the officers and councillors that I had contacted before and the barriers (and similar ones nearby) were taken away within two months. Blocking wheelchairs gets more attention than bicycles. Use this fact!
Great work! And happy serendipidy.
Thanks to the efforts of the late heavy metal handcyclist hopefully the knowledge than the law is on your side and it often motivates councils is circulating more widely.
I ride in this area a lot and I've seen plenty of kids on motorbikes causing a problem. I don't know if anyone using a mobility scooter or wheelchair would really want to use this area to travel through in general, as it isn't the only inaccessible part of the route. The whole network needs improving. The police have been trying to crackdown on the area but they can't just stay on the cycle paths waiting for motorbikes all day.
Absolutely correct.
But we have to start from here.
There is quite significant experience that opening up routes for everyone to use as is their legal right, with improved surfaces, and perhaps more useful policing priorities, result in ASB falling because it is less 'fun' and more people around.
Here is the Sustrans page about trials they have done:
https://www.sustrans.org.uk/our-blog/opinion/2023/march/why-are-there-ba...
Thank-you for continuing coverage of this issue.
Now we need coverage on how to get them removed, and success stories.
An interview with Sustrans on one of their projects to improve an entire route would be great, about their philosophy and approach to the many stakeholders they have to deal with. Currently one I believe involves the Strawberry Line path, but there are others everywhere.
Another good one would be with the Access (or whatever it is called) team at Cycling UK, who do similar work from a cycling point of view - and covers things such as barriers on bridleways, and claiming paths for cycling under the 20 years unopposed use provisions of (I think) the Highways Act 1980.
Do these campaigners actually have a viable solution though? If they do, then fantastic but moaning without a solutions is daft. Sadly there are antisocial guts that ride the m/cs. These won't be, on the whole, law abiding types by yobs who don't care a toss at best. Short of breaking their legs nothing will stop them unless it is a physical barrier.
Sadly also, sometime not everybody can access everything. Life is like that.
I think the solution is "don't put up barriers" and if there are there are actual motorbikes this one's one for the police and local youth work long term. Or have they put this in "in case of"?
As others point out - while there's a place for "we should regulate some nice things because misuse" this "solution" amounts to "ban the most vulnerable, inconvenience everyone - but don't actually stop those we don't want".
We have a solution, it's called police officers. They're what we use to stop antisocial behaviour on the road network, they're what's needed to stop the same on the off-road network.
There is no design of barrier that permits full access to disabled people, but which stops motorcycles. It's impossible.
And since you can't discriminate against people based on disability, because that is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010, that makes barriers like this illegal.
There's also a record number of police now - so they have zero excuse for failing to tackle low level anti social behaviour - not least when so much research points to this being one of the best ways to limit the rise in crime levels.
Not rushing to defend the police but surely the metrics that are important are:
Numbers of police in relation to population
Also:
The level of experience of officers.
What they are tasked with doing, and the money they're given to do it with.
More info here: https://www.politics.co.uk/reference/police-numbers-and-recruitment/
The latter gets complicated - so when they managed to streamline their approach to dealing with "mental health" that should have been a win. Of course, if the other services aren't actually taking on all that responsibility that may just mean police end up dealing with fewer incidents but they're much more severe...
Priorities are very important and fed back for local things through local councillors and the Police and Crime Commissioner.
A reminder that Police and Crime Commissioners are all being reelected this year on May 2nd, so it is a good time ask all the candidates questions (and promote this in your local cycling groups).
This is a post I did in the forum several weeks ago to encourage this:
-----------------------------
A heads up - this is important because the PCC is the elected official who holds the police to account and inputs into policy, especially from a "what do the public want" angle.
Therefore they get strategic input into policies around advice to install new barriers, whether barriers are the "solution to motorbikes ASB" or they should do proactive policing.
Also they can push to make ASB pavement parking enforcement a priority, & have an input into PSPOs (eg cycling banned in Mansfield centre). I suggest we need to be asking for example:
1 - What is policy on advising on barriers on new developments?
2 - Policy on existing anti-disabled / anti-cycling barriers on rights of way / permissive paths / greenways etc?
3 - Will you boost Operation Endurance? This is the normal name for addressing motorbike ASB issues.
4 - Will you start or improve Operation Parksafe (to do with pavement parking)?
There are several different versions, of which Cheshire Police & West Midlands Police are probably the best - Cheshire link below. Watch out for existing backfoot or "leave it to the Council" policy passed off as the improved version.
5 - Will you expand use of the Video Upload Portal to cover parking offences (see Cheshire)?
6 - Will you make the Upload Portal be brought in line with National Police Chiefs' Council Recommendations (covers stuff like feedback)?
7 - Do you accept that opening up paths, bridleways, Greenways etc to more use is a good way to reduce ASB by increased surveillance by removing access barriers? Will your policy reflect this?
8 - Will you ask your Local Highways Authority to remove all unlawful barriers from existing PROWs, Multiuse Trails etc?
Now the Tories control 30 out of 39 PCC positions in England (Lab - 8, Plaid 1); in 2021 it was 20 / 14 / 2), so the mix will swing to Labour given current polling. These are low turnout elections so a small number of votes can have more impact.
Much can be done by asking similar questions of MPs and Local Councillors.
My Motto: Don't do nothing, nor try to do everything. Do SOMETHING.
Links: PCC Elections, Op SNAP Guidelines via DCS Andy Cox, Op Parksafe Cheshire - enforcement via Op SNAP,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_England_and_Wales_police_and_crime_co...
https://twitter.com/AndyCoxDCS/status/1601607522770567169
https://www.cheshire.police.uk/news/cheshire/news/articles/2024/2/operat...
The barriers put up *don't* stop them, and are a complete waste of money.
And they do illegally prevent lawful use.
ASB is a policing problem, and needs a policing solution.
Some places are doing it already eg South Wales and Cleveland; it is a matter of resources and priorities.
I've got a viable solution: ban motorcycles. OK, that will inconvenience legal, considerate motorcyclists, but it would work.
If people use motorbikes on this bridge there is an inherent problem. We must tackle the problem at it's root cause. Why do they ride their motorbikes across this very bridge? Why not take a different route?
If there is a better option for a motorist, they would not ride across this very bridge and barriers are not needed. What you acchieve with barriers is nothing; it is a waste of money. Barriers will not help here; mankind will always find a way to circumvent the barriers!
If there is a cycle path and a pedestrian sidewalk next to one another, only then one could add bollards or a barrier to the sidewalk start, as that will make the bike lane a better choice for the cyclist; one must however not make barriers like in this article as a wheelchair user cannot cross them, you must be able to go around them. It only adds to the correct usability; not deter from it.
Yes, a cyclist can use the pedestrian sidewalk, but is it a better choice? Would you if there was a bollard? Or the sidewalk is raised snd aqward to cycle at speed? I would automaticly choose the bike lane because I don't want to try and avoid a bollard go around barriers, or hop a curb.
A motorist will not choose a pedestrian bridge if there were to be an easyer and objectively better option. Here it seems that the bridge might be the only option.
Otherwise, barriers would not even be needed in the first place and it would save us a whole lot of arguments.
You appear to have grasped rather firmly at the wrong end of the stick: the problem these barriers are attempting (poorly) to address is that of illegal off-road motorcyclists, not law-abiding ones forced into taking the bridge because there is no alternative. There could be the best alternative in the world available but if it was a public road where they could be caught by the police they would still be using the bridge.
You'er missing that pedestrians using mobility aids are also affected, and which have very nearly the same access needs as cyclists - so it's a joint issue.
The means of dealing with motorbikes is adequate policing, which when done (eg Cleveland, South Wales) has been found to have significant benefits for intelligence lead policing as it increases local knowledge and detects other crime.
It is like pavement parking enforcement, which finds for example untaxed and unregistered vehicles, and those dumped by thieves for a couple of days to test whether there is a tracker on it.
Both can be done largely by PCSOs with approriate auhorisation / training, which is less expensive than using Constables.
See policing sources under Operation Endurance or Operation Parksafe.
They are antisocial riders on dirt bikes. They aren't travelling from A to B, and they cause havoc on the roads as well! I often see them doing wheelies down the main road.
Yep. The issue isn't the places and the access - the issue is the bikers. Wheelying and playing chicken with vehicles against the flow of traffic is totally a part of it.
Off-and-on long running issue in Edinburgh here, like probably many places.
Can we not issue these councils with Public Space Protection Orders? A lot of them seem to be fond of issuing PSPOs against cycling, so sauce for the goose..........
Public Service Protection Orders?
Bradbourne have a PSPO to control ASBO parking.
"They have warned riders that if they are caught riding the bikes antisocially, they will be given a warning and if they continue will have their bikes seized."
So that was plan A last year. How did that go? Did they seize a load of bikes? According to the articles number of warnings had already been issued. Or was it all just an empty promise
It would stop those of us who use trailers for children too. Maybe easier than offset gates but would be a dismount and maybe decant too. Exactly the type of rider that would like to be off road routes.
It's as if they've assumed all cyclists are the stereotypical "lycra clad warriers" with light racing bikes, no shopping in panniers, definitely no kids or trailers, or bad backs.
'...local active travel campaigners, who argue that these measures “discriminate” against people who use wheelchairs or cycles as mobility aids.'
Not sure why you feel the need to put discriminate in quotes.
I agree it might set off spidey-senses but here I think simply because they're "quoting". From the article they link right there:
"Quoting" because they changed the word form. Perhaps better to quote the actual words but I think it's not unusual for headline-writing?
Understood, unfortunately the change from using italics to quotes changes, to my mind, it from emphasis to opinion.
Consider 'Hilter was an evil man' and 'Hitler was an "evil" man'
Agree, but we may be overestimating the editorial attention to detail here, or possibly sections of culture have evolved ...
OTOH the catholic taste for pun-friendly stories in other content is laudable!
Catholic?...
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