An MP and residents are calling for plans to build a cycle lane along the centre of Southport’s promenade to be reviewed before they are implemented.
The proposals, which form part of Phase Two of Sefton Council’s “Les Transformations de Southport” project, are part of a wider regeneration scheme aimed at improving links between the town centre and seafront.
Council plans show a dedicated cycle route running along the central reservation of The Promenade, creating what officials describe as a “green spine” featuring new planting, pedestrian improvements and cycling infrastructure.
Traffic would continue to travel on either side of the cycle lane.
Sefton Council says the design would help keep pavements free from cyclists, improve pedestrian safety and reduce conflicts with vehicles accessing parking spaces and loading areas.
The authority also argues that the promenade is wide enough to accommodate the cycle lane without reducing space for other users.
Although he supports the broader regeneration scheme, Southport MP Patrick Hurley has questioned whether the cycle lane is necessary in its proposed form.
“I think that the town centre — anyone who has been in Southport over the last 30 years can see that it’s suffered from retail outlets moving out,” he told BBC Radio Merseyside.
“It’s suffered from the fact that it’s not quite the seaside destination it was in the 70s, 80s and early 90s.
“Sefton Council is looking to address that; I’m looking to address that. I’ve got government backing for some of the schemes that we are bringing forward, but I think that the plans the local authority have got on the table need to be reviewed and improved.
“It’s not the best thought-through plan, and I will be working with councillors and council officers to improve it.”
The Labour MP said the plans currently proposed by the council needed further work before they were implemented.
Debbie Johnson also criticised the plans, saying: “Nobody wants these cycle lanes, they are not even useful. They appear and disappear randomly. What good is that?”
She added: “We want to be able to go and eat and shop or meet friends for coffee without looking at our watches and worrying about all the traffic wardens. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could park for free for a few hours, and if the traffic wardens could help clean Southport up, making it the beautiful town it could be?”
15 thoughts on ““It’s not the best thought through plan”: MP calls for cycle lane plans to be reviewed”
I am familiar with Southport and on the face of it, this sounds like a sensible scheme.
There is plenty of space to accommodate everything.
The cycle track will be around a mile long and having it in the centre segregates cycles from pedestrians and doesn’t impact on car parking spaces.
But if the cycle lane keeps disappearing (maybe like in the Philadelphia Experiment) as alluded to in the article, that will be a problem.
I’ve seen these before – admittedly not tried one, but I don’t think they’re smart. The idea appears to be that:
a) “if we *have* to accommodate cycling where’s the place that it’s least effort to put it?” rather than where people would like to cycle.
b) “keep those dangerous cyclists away from vulnerable pedestrians and motorists”
c) obviously people in cars need to be able to stop anywhere and immediately get out onto the footway. Can’t inconvenience them! Whatabout deliveries? Also see “cycle danger” above (usually framed as “we’re keeping cyclists safe from dooring” which is sensible but doesn’t normally seem to concern planners…)
What they *do* is make it a nuisance for cyclists to access these. And it removes an advantage of cycling – that you can get off your bike and eg. go straight into shops. This design helpfully removes that advantage, reserving that privilege for motorists.
Is this some kind of arthouse film they’re funding?
@mdavidford No – they’re moving to France and changing their name to Southport Sur Mer.
@mdavidford actually quite an interesting story:
“Cllr Marion Atkinson, Labour Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Skills, explained: “While living in exile in Southport in 1838, Prince Louis Napoleon, later Emperor Napoleon III, was so inspired by the grandeur of Lord Street that he ordered Baron Haussmann to model the reconstruction of Paris on it. Les Transformations de Paris made the French capital the “Southport of the South”. Les Transformations de Southport will ensure we again fulfil the potential of our public realm spaces, on Lord Street and beyond.”
Maybe they could return the favour and look at what Hidalgo’s been doing for cyclists.
I have been into Southport many times over the last couple of years and the town specialises in heavily potholed murder strips narrower than a drop bar bike. I assumed it’s a Tory council but I see it’s a Labour majority on Sefton Council which covers right down to the Liverpool boundary. Like most, if not all, of Lancashire (which is a Reform cesspit) you see very few cyclists unless you happen across a club.
How strange – I find myself agreeing with the first chap!
Spot on – so to address point 1 you’ll be working to make the place more active-travel friendly (because every place that has tried has found that this improves shop revenues *), right? Getting away from the “drive to the out-of-town shopping centre” model?
And the same applies for tourism – surely people want to potter around walkable places, not dodge all the other traffic or try to battle through them in their own car?
And I agree – any scheme that sandwiches cyclists between rivers of motor vehicles needs a serious rethink! (Sorry Manchester, was it; but I just don’t think that’s smart).
So pleased you want to do more to deliver options other than motor transport. Right?
* Allowing for some disruption while works are ongoing (*cough* Leith Walk) and assuming that this doesn’t just end up making a small island of pedestrian space surrounded by a moat of horrible roads.
She added: “We want to be able to go and eat and shop or meet friends for coffee without looking at our watches and worrying about all the traffic wardens. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could park for free for a few hours, and if the traffic wardens could help clean Southport up, making it the beautiful town it could be?”
Why do people always seem to believe that more cars are the answer to a town centre’s decline?
Surely anyone can see that they are not?
Cars are alienating. They make a town centre hostile, dirty, polluted and noisy.
We thought we had reached Peak Stupid with Brexit, Johnson and Truss, but the Reform Plague shows we haven’t. The Southport Motorised Shoppers also show we haven’t, by seeking More Panzers and More Panzer Parking and the solution to these dreadful traffic jams is the removal of the cause: traffic wardens, cyclists and cycle lanes- or rather, preventing any of them happening in the first place. The council was, at least, trying to produce a solution but didn’t dare to overtly state the unplatable truth: we need more buses, more Active Travel and fewer Panzers
Don’t forget Restore, making Reform seem reasonable and “mainstream”…
@chrisonabike Oh, I know this, it’s the waste hierarchy isn’t it – Reform, Restore, Refuse
@Rome73 I think she’s probably Southport’s rent an igonorant, illogical and dumb quote person.
I was born in Southport. Last time I visited in January I saw 3 cyclists in the whole of the long weekend I was there. It’s flat and the winters are usually mild, the roads are wide and many have 20mph speed limits which, unfortunately, are ignored with impunity.
While I was there I looked at the cycle lane referred to in the following link, which was covered in road.cc a while back. The cycle lane goes from nowhere to nowhere and I did not see a single cyclist using it. This may be different during commuting hours.
https://eyeonsouthport.co.uk/southport-cycle-lanes-used-over-2-5-million-times-set-to-be-made-permanent
The roads are in a terrible condition, as noted by wtjs. I was hoping to borrow my brothers bike while I was there but it hasn’t beeen used in 10 years, I think I know why.
Meanwhile here is what a local cyclist thinks about the scheme in the article:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1l20zqp2y6o
It seems to me that, like many local autorities, the views and needs of cyclists are being ignored leading to infrastructure that looks ok to non cyclists but is far from ideal and in some cases worse than nothing (murder strips and possibly this scheme). Here in Gloucestershire the local cycling group is no more after they were actively ignored by the county council.
This has lead to the new infrastructure that, while being welcome, is far from ideal from a cyclist’s point of view when, for no extra cost, it could have been so much better.
We want to be able to go and eat and shop or meet friends for coffee…
The ‘we’ sounds like it’s not the slightest bit interested in any of this Active Travel nonsense, and we’re now experiencing the deluge of ‘obesity isn’t your fault’ (even though it obviously is) adverts from Eli Lilly, which is expecting a profits bonanza on UK approval of their new orally active appetite-suppressant/ weight-loss drug. Politicians seeking election by an inactive, unhealthy, idle electorate daren’t tell them that Idle Travel must be actively discouraged along with their ability to buy and run increasing numbers of energy-guzzler Panzers. I suppose that’s one of the problems with democracy.
Thing is most people really care about the same things: can we get where we want (ideally as easily / cheaply as possible) and are the places we go to pleasant (once outside of the mode of transport)?
Most people prefer environments where we aren’t surrounded by noisy transport and where we can walk freely. We all revert to walking/wheeling when we’re “there”.
BUT … people adapt to “what is” remarkably effectively. So if our “high street” is actually a road, we don’t much notice the noise and all the motor vehicles and the fact we can’t just amble from one side to the other. Even though when those limitations are removed people always say it’s better.
Similar with “convenience” – if there’s say a tram into town every 20 minutes many people would be happy that it’s accessible. *Except* if that’s unreliable, or they’ve previously been able to drive in whenever.
But because of “adaptation” we don’t compare like with like eg. we discount the considerable variation in journey time by car (traffic, finding a parking space).
OTOH with the car you start / finish direct from home which people like. But there’s issues of parking at destination to consider – and even multistorey car parks can fill up, and they’re not pleasant / terribly socially safe places.