A chippy owner who has repeatedly blamed the controversial Castleton cycle lane for “killing” trade in a town with “no cyclists” has been using the same cycle lane to prop up a bike advertising his shop…
Mark Foster, who runs the New Bridge Chippy on Manchester Road, Rochdale, said his business had been “struggling with one thing after another after Covid” and argued that the council’s £600,000 high street regeneration fund for shop front improvements was “two years too late”.
In a bizarre twist, we also happened to notice that Mr Foster has actually been using the cycle lane he is campaigning against to prop up a vintage bike with flat tyres, shod with an advert for his chip shop.
“It should have been there before the cycle lane and the roadworks even started,” he told the BBC. “There’s no cyclists. Cyclists can’t even park their bikes anywhere in the village to come to my shop, so I just don’t understand what they are doing.”
Work on the cycle paths, which cost nearly £5 million, began almost three years ago. Businesses on the high street have spoken of a collapse in footfall because cars have nowhere to “pull over and park”, according to Foster.
Dee Phillips, who runs D’s Waxmelts, said the revamp “will make Castleton look better” but added: “There’s just no parking. It’s been a really tough few years due to the roadworks. A lot of people now do want to park right outside the shop.”
Rahand Mahmud, who owns the Mini Market vape shop, said trade had dropped by half because “if they can’t park outside, they can’t stop here”. Foster agreed, adding: “If it keeps going like this, all of us will have to close down.”
However, the latest funding scheme, set to cover repairs to stonework and brickwork, new signage, lighting and artwork, and the reinstatement of historical features, doesn’t simply have a congregation of non-believers. Ambrose Khalid, who runs the Urban Hair Studio, said he hoped “it does do some good”.
“I’ve got faith in it because of the fact of how many houses are getting built around here so the footfall will hopefully be back,” he said.
A council spokesperson said the shop front improvement scheme was part of the wider regeneration of Castleton, with “many of its brownfield sites transformed with high-quality new homes”.
Councillor Danny Meredith, cabinet member for regeneration and housing, said: “This investment will help business owners in this vital area organise repairs and improvements to their premises, which they otherwise may not have been able to afford.
“This, in turn, could help them attract even more customers in future, including the residents who are moving into the new houses which are being created and making Castleton their long-term home.”
Last year, business owners told the BBC that the project had “killed” the village, with Foster claiming sales were down 50 per cent. “Customers used to pull up, order the food, get back into the car and away they go,” the chippy owner said at the time. “It’s supposed to get better, but I can’t see it, to be honest.”
In reality, however, the project is set to add 80 new off-street parking spaces. However, some residents were still in agreement that it was a “total waste of money”, alluding to even more murderous tendencies of the bike lane.
The controversy around the cycle lane project has also played out in local politics. In a heated council debate earlier this year, Conservative councillor Peter Winkler claimed that active travel schemes like this were “squeezing out motorists in favour of cyclists”.
“Just consider the road layouts that squeeze out motorists in favour of others,” he said. “Roads are being narrowed to minimums. We have junctions beyond limits but we’re still approving developments in those areas. This is happening on our watch.”
Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors defended the investment in active travel, with Councillor Shah Wazir, cabinet member for highways, saying the project would “transform a major, well-used route in Rochdale town centre, with improved journey times for motorists and significant safety improvements to support walkers, cyclists and people using wheelchairs and prams”.
Greater Manchester’s Active Travel Commissioner, Dame Sarah Storey, has also repeatedly rejected the idea that the cycle lane has “killed” Castleton.
“A bike lane doesn’t close a village. It opens it up and enables more people to choose to move. Not everybody can drive, not everybody owns a car, and they’re now connected to a train station and soon to the town centre through the extension,” she said.
“It’s a coincidence, not an unexpected consequence. The timing in Castleton was really challenging, with the cost of living crisis and coming out of the pandemic. When you’ve two things like that colliding, they’ve had to take it to experts to discuss how they can sort the economic side out.”
The council said work on the next phase of the cycle lane scheme — further down Manchester Road — is now underway, with the entire project due for completion in 2026.
43 thoughts on “Chippy owner who blames cycle lane for loss of trade in village with “no cyclists” uses it to prop up bike advertising his shop”
That is a pretty uninviting –
That is a pretty uninviting – looking chip shop. It looks as though it closed several years ago. Not sure I would be tempted to stop there.
I suggest labour costs, gas costs, electricity costs, cooking oil costs, potato costs and fish costs have been the biggest factor.
A good quality cod and chip meal, is more expensive than other takeaways these days, I find.
Could try opening Saturdays?
Could try opening Saturdays? Calling it True English kind of suggests a born whinger.
Perhaps also limiting his
Perhaps also limiting his market. I can remember having excellent “True Scottish” fish and chips in Paisley and “True Welsh” fish and chips in Cardiff.
There was a chippy near where
There was a chippy near where I used to live, went out of business despite having a car park right outside it.
The fish n chips were excellent, his opening times less so.
He’d close 12:00-14:00 for lunch and 16:00-18:00 for dinner, then close at 20:00 and didn’t open weekends or bank holidays.
Obviously the nearby cycle lane was to blame.
“cycle-projects-squeeze-out
“cycle-projects-squeeze-out-motorists-favour-cyclists” – and yet it’s always fine to squeeze out cyclists in favour of motorists (and parking for motorists)…
Presumably in the pic they
Presumably in the pic they have just extended outwards from the footway – and the bollards are really there to protect the bridge / railway from motorists?
Hopefully they can fix this in the fullness of time (which might be very … full … there?) e.g. if bollards are needed, move them to the outside of the cycle path. In the best of all possible worlds it would be nice to reduce the number of obstructions cyclists and walkers can bump into…
This is a real mess (and
This is a real mess (and really they should have found the extra cash for proper continuous footway / cycle path here).
OTOH the messy markings also show just how much liberty people will take when it comes to antisocial / dangerous parking (and how much “procedure” is needed to keep the law straight on policing drivers). “War on the motorist” it really ain’t.
There are hundreds of
There are hundreds of residential properties within 10 mins walking distance/3min bike ride and from what I recall the road was always full of parked cars anyway, so no opportunity to pop in for a bag of chips. I’d always eat in the Rochdale Tesco, no parking problems there.
When did a cycle lane stop
When did a cycle lane stop drivers from pulling over? I’m prepared to bet it hasn’t stopped their uber eats delivery drivers.
“True English fish and chips”
“True English fish and chips” – as introduced to this sceptered isle by Portuguese Jews who came here from the Netherlands…
Not sure about fish and chips
Not sure about fish and chips specifically but in general I’d bet that those fairly recently here from elsewhere are overrepresented in the takeaway food industry. In fact, what with fishermen (apparently lots of the crews are foreign nationals), tattie-growers (plenty from eastern Europe) and the wholesalers/truckers it’s a pretty cosmopolitain business.
Genuinely the worst looking
Genuinely the worst looking fish and chip shop I’ve ever seen. But of course it’s definitely the cycle lane that’s killing business
Another business that claims
Another business that claims unlimited and 100% accessible parking right at its front door.
Nothing to do with prices and the general cost of living.
Or the fact that his shop
Or the fact that his shop looks like a tenement. Would you stop and buy food in a place that looked that dirty and run down?
And just down the road is a
And just down the road is a chippy called ‘Craving Cod’ (checked this place out via Streetview). Looks to be a far better chippy than his.
Free botulism with every meal
Free botulism with every meal!
[/sarcasm]
Bargain then.
Bargain then.
Lets be honest, the chipper
Lets be honest, the chipper looks like you’d spend the next few hours not more than a few metres from the nearest toilet, I’d avoid it anyway. This is what the uk is now, you must be able to park only a few steps from each shop and not have to walk 50 metres from a parking space to the shops and back. Yes people will then walk to get their 10k steps in. Why not combine the tasks… I think we might be as lazy a nation as America and we are definitely heading in that direction with the Deform morons gaining a foothold in politics.
It is worrying every time we
It is worrying every time we look to the US for e.g. of good transport practice. By neices town has drive through everything – fast food in particular. Even has a drive through pharmacy so you dont need to get out of your car to pick up your obesity and diabetes T2 medication.
Samtheeagle wrote:
If one thing is clear it’s that you should almost never look to the US for good transport practice.
I’ve softened this from “never” because a) where it’s clear that something makes sense often people in the US are smart and humble enought to adopt it despite it not being invented there (UK … we’re not so good at that). b) Folks in the US are great at industrialisation / working out ways of building / making stuff efficiently (or at least cheaply).
There are in fact plenty places where the US does to some extent apply similar urbanism e.g. public transport, active travel provision (though one should be aware of geographical / physical / legal / political and most importantly societal differences – some of them a bit “meta”). But … much less so, and I think those places will remain exceptions there.
This is so true. Drivers park
This is so true. Drivers park on the pedestrianised area outside the row of various restaurants and takeaways near me so that it’s only a 10-20 metre walk. The authorities – council and police – do nothing to stop it.
It’s due to how lazy, and,
It’s due to how lazy, and, dare I say, overweight many of the population have become.
Isn’t this the same stretch
Isn’t this the same stretch of road where the locals were complaining about being held up by a cyclist for 14 seconds?
There was a story in my local
There was a story in my local comic a while back about retailers moaning about loss of trade because their road had been closed to vehicles. The rubbish rag ran it of course, conveniently overlooking that there were double yellow lines on both sides before the change.
It always bugs me when people
It always bugs me when people bring up “there’s no cyclists” to oppose a cycle lane – the point is to encourage cycling. You wouldn’t complain about plans to build an airport where there’s no planes landing, would you? (Well you might complain about an airport for other reasons)
Isn’t the example often given
Isn’t the example often given as “We don’t need to build a bridge over this crocodile-infested river: we never see anyone swimming across, so there clearly isn’t a demand for people to cross it”
brooksby wrote:
Yeah, but I like the airport version as it highlights the absurdity of the argument
hawkinspeter wrote:
Well – we (the evil cycling lobby) should have this on record – any paid-up lycrist infiltrators there?
You can’t get “cyclists” just by putting people on bikes and having them ride, you know! It takes entitlement and “cycle-specific clothing” at least (“rubber knickers”, according to Eric Pickles).
I’ve always thought that Eric
I’ve always thought that Eric Pickles would be ‘the man most likely’ to be wearing rubber knickers himself.
hawkinspeter wrote:
Also cycle lanes often appear to be unused because they are so efficient at moving traffic along; I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been stuck in a traffic jam on a bus on the Harleyford Road (which cricket fans will know is the road that skirts the southwest side of the Oval) and heard people tutting and pointing at the excellent bidirectional cycle lane to the side, “Look at that, bloody empty, used to be an extra lane there…” Of course it’s empty, there were twenty cyclists with us at the last set of lights but they’re miles away now because unlike the road system cycle lanes actually work.
I was recently on holiday in
I was recently on holiday in a cottage, we went to the local small town to get some fish n chips and shopping. There was no parking outside any of the shops so we parked in the car park a couple of streets back from the main road, walked through and got the chippy and some groceries from the co-op.
They were both really busy, literally queuing out the door for the chippy and the other takeaways on the street.
It’s almost like the “not having parking right outside is going to cost business” is a load of old cobblers.
More likely the roadworks right outside made it hard to get to.
Also having a shop that looks like you’d be murdered in it not the best thing to attract customers.
The ‘New Bridge Chippy’,
The ‘New Bridge Chippy’, formerly trading as ‘Mistress Todd’s Pie Shoppe’.
(Mind you, I do find that some of the best grub is served up by the least promising- looking establishments.)
I’ve just been through
I’ve just been through Castleton via Google Streetview. It’s lined with takeaways. Inlcuding one called ‘Carving Cod’ which looks a far better chippy than Mark Foster’s place. Me thinks Foster doth protest too much.
Really good cyclists will
Really good cyclists will never use a cycle lane like the idiot we saw tonight riding on the pavement whilst on his phone and walking a dog , wouldn’t know a cycle lane if it bite him
Ah, but you didn’t specify:
Ah, but you didn’t specify: did they nearly collide with you while you were in your wheelchair?
Did they claim to be a member
Did they claim to be a member of “really good cyclists”?
Why would his dog biting him
Why would a dog biting him help him recognise a cycle lane?
On the subject of motorists
On the subject of motorists who are incapable of walking any distance to get their fish and chips, there is a chippy in Downton near Salisbury. Fairly narrow road, sharp bend, cars parked everywhere. And yet they come, block the road and cause utter chaos. Just selfish, me me me fuck everyone else attitude. This is the world that we live in now. I despair.
If you take a look at the
If you take a look at the village via streetview, I doubt many people are stopping there to shop in the first place!
These businessowners always look for an excuse when their business is failing, which is most often due to their own incompetence and lack of ability or offering a service/product people actually want.
In that chippy’s case, 100m down the road is another called ‘Craving Cod’ which on outer aesthetics alone is far more appealing than Foster’s ‘new Bridge Chippy’.
Someone should just report
Someone should just report his advertising bike as “abandoned” (after hiding the sign somewhere nobody would want to venture to find it – like in the shop doorway!) 😁
Is the owner really wanting a
Is the owner really wanting a drive-through without the overheads?
So apparently there’s nowhere
So apparently there’s nowhere for his customers to park.
Here’s the streetview angle next to his shop: https://maps.app.goo.gl/3UtQ7AP3TjN8UDSFA
And yes, there’s space behind that building too. He’s just a liar, like the rest of the complainers in Castleton.
A useful feature of google
A useful feature of google maps is selecting different dates for the image, and in the case of this chippy you can see it’s decline started in 2017. Sure there are occasions where people parked outside the chippy, but in half the instances on google, the chippy was shut. So, using the same scientific methods as drivers deduce cycle lanes are not used based on fleeting glances, I have deduced from google images that the chippy was not used by drivers and has been in decline for far longer than the 1yr since cycle lanes were introduced.