A section of the popular Bristol to Bath Railway Path damaged by tree routes that was finally resurfaced in October days after a BBC article telling the story of a cyclist left in a coma following a crash had been reported several times over a number of years with no action taken, an FOI request to South Gloucestershire Council has revealed.
The council’s response to the request – submitted by a road.cc reader – included an email chain started by a member of the public in late July who asked if the council would be making improvements to the section at Siston Common near Warmley, citing two incidents in which cyclists had come off their bikes.
On 20th August, the council said it would “get some signs out here to warm [sic] cyclists of the tree roots on the slope” and “look to carry out a patch in the coming weeks. This will probably be into September/October.”
On 22nd August, 50-year-old Emanuele Ziglioli crashed on the section, spending 10 days in a coma and suffering a brain haemorrhage according to quotes he gave to the BBC.
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Despite the serious incident involving Mr Ziglioli, it still took until the end of October for the section to be resurfaced, which just so happened to be days after the BBC’s article was published and pressure on the council increased.
The FOI also included a log of incident reports and the responses to them since late 2021. On several occasions, members of the public had reported problems with tree roots on the section where Mr Ziglioli crashed, with some saying they had come off their bikes.
The outcome of a safety inspection carried out after a report made in April 2024 simply said “can’t access job”, and in September 2024 the response said that a ticket had been created to “carry out a patch” on the section, but the responder said they “don’t know when this will be [sic] happen.” More reports were made leading up to the August 2026 incident, with responses invariably saying that a ticket had already been created with no resolution offered.
Also included was South Gloucestershire Council’s Highway Safety Inspection Manual, which lists common highway defects that need attention. Tree roots are not mentioned as a specific defect, which has led Bristol Cycling Campaign to question if this may be one of the reasons why the section damaged by tree roots on the Bristol and Bath Railway Path took so long to address.
A spokesperson for the Bristol Cycling Campaign told road.cc: “This FOI response shines a light on the procedures that S. Glos council apply to their maintenance regime for cycleways. We were surprised that the published ‘Highway Safety Inspection Manual’ does not categorise tree root damage (a.k.a. root heave) as a specific defect.
“Is this why the damaged path surface was not fixed before causing the horrendous injuries to a cyclist earlier this year, in spite of multiple recorded fix-my-streets reports and the stated policy of an annual inspection visit? We need this omission in the manual to be rectified as soon as possible to prevent any future recurrence”.
Despite road.cc fielding several questions to South Gloucestershire Council asking why the problem was not addressed sooner and why tree roots are not categorised as a defect in its Highway Safety Inspection Manual, it replied with just this: “As with any highways issues that we are aware of across our district, repairs are assessed and prioritised, and we encourage anyone who identifies a defect on our highway network report it to us.”
