Plans for a new £15m regional cycling hub in Lawrence Weston have been approved, despite strong opposition from residents.
The ‘state-of-the-art’ facility, approved by Bristol City Council’s Planning Committee, is set to be built on Merriman’s and Henacre Open Space.
The development will include a 1km closed-loop track for training and racing, a Bikeability area for beginners, a cycling play zone, a car park and a main building with offices and facilities.
The site will also feature security fencing, lighting and CCTV, along with a slight diversion and upgrade to the National Cycle Network (NCN41) and the Avon Cycleway.
However, around 50 residents have objected to the plans, raising concerns about affordability, environmental impact and increased traffic. A key issue is the perception that the hub will not be freely accessible, with some residents citing reports that entry could cost up to £30.
Writing on Facebook about the loss of the green space, Kia-Louise Cook said: “I’m dreading it. It doesn’t matter what any of us say; they only care about money, so they will build it. It doesn’t matter that hundreds use it on a daily basis, I love watching people play there while washing up, not looking at a car park.”
Jenny Claridge added, “It’s so sad to be losing that green space, it will totally transform the area. There will also be a huge amount of wildlife lost.”
Jay Leonard also raised concerns about pricing and environmental impact, saying: “It’s ridiculous to charge £30 for admission in a deprived area. It’s a waste of our green space and the wildlife that actually lives there.”
Not all residents oppose the scheme. Stuart Houghton said: “I think it’s very positive and could be an asset to our area.”
Councillor Ed Plowden, chair of Bristol City Council’s transport and connectivity committee, defended the development, describing it as a major step towards making cycling more accessible.
He said: “Achieving planning permission is a major milestone and brings us one step closer to creating a traffic-free space that will open up cycling to many more people across Bristol and beyond.
“As a community asset, it will provide more opportunities for people to be active, spend time together and enjoy healthier lifestyles. It will also help bring people together, create new opportunities for training and work, and support a cleaner, more sustainable city by encouraging more everyday journeys by bike.
“We’re delighted to see this project moving forward — it’s an investment not just in cycling, but in the long-term health, wellbeing and resilience of our communities.”
He added that the plans include inclusive training opportunities, such as Bikeability sessions for SEND pupils and tailored support for disabled adults.
Helen Godwin, Mayor of the West of England, also backed the project. She said: “We want to make it as easy as possible for people to stay healthy and active, and cycling is a great way to stay fit and travel. Access to places where it is safe for children to learn to cycle, and for young people and adults to gain confidence, is really important.
“We are committed to getting people in the West of England moving, and encouraging more people to cycle is a big part of that. We are already investing in safer cycling infrastructure across our region, working with Active Travel England and local councils.
“This planning decision is an essential step towards a new regional cycling hub. The combined authority can now consider the full business case for the scheme.”
Construction of the hub remains dependent on the development of a full business case and the securing of additional funding. The cost of preparing the business case is being met through the UK Government’s City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement, secured by the West of England Mayoral Combined Authority, while a decision on further funding is still pending.
17 thoughts on “Plans for £15m regional cycling hub approved despite residents’ concerns”
An objectively terrible idea from every angle. Only in local government could you be paid to design and deliver a white elephant of such cost and magnitude and not immediately lose your job.
A terrible idea…if you’re on a pre-emptive, anti-cycling trolling mission.
I’m far from anti cycling. But what I am is a Bristolian and this project stinks.
The site is already a great place to learn or enjoy cycling in a car-free environment. Spend a modest amount of money resurfacing the path and cutting back the vegetation and it would be great. No possible need then for an admission fee.
Instead the people of Lawrence Weston, one of the most deprived neighbourhoods in the UK, are being deprived of free-to-use green space. Very few are going to pay an admission fee for a ‘cycling hub’.
Very few other Bristolians are going to ride or car top their bikes out to a remote and unattractive site next to a motorway junction so that they can pay to cycle.
Bristol (and especially this NW fringe) needs lots of cycling investment. The fact that so much is being spaffed up the wall on this absolutely boggles the mind.
The current Bristol Family Cycling Centre seems to have done OK charging £5/£7 for children/adults, and all costs are at present speculative; if the £30 figure cited is an entry fee for racing in an event series, that’s not uncommon.
As for the loss of green space (a fairly uninspiring bit of reclaimed landfill, highlighted on picture), looking on the map the area seems rather well provided with green space and one wouldn’t have thought a well-landscaped project with extra trees would detract greatly from that.
It’s telling that there are only fifty objections from a populous area of a large city; go into any biog town and you’ll always find fifty people to object to anything, particularly if it concerns cycling.
It appears to me that I was wrong to assume Broom is an anti-cycling troll, and I apologise. It sounds like the sort of facility I wouldn’t be interested in myself, but if I lived around there I wouldn’t be objecting. I agree with Rendel’s point that it will always be easy to dredge up objectors to anything to do with cycling.
I don’t know the area but checked the map and was thinking similar. It is out of town – but of course in the middle of cities space is always in massive demand. OTOH there are a couple of railway stations reasonably close.
It’s still quite possible it turns out to be a gilded bauble… but aside from other uses I like the idea of “traffic gardens” which can be used by kids at eg. all the schools in the local area. Of course as we know schools can do cycling education but nothing much changes if the adults they want to be don’t cycle.
wtjs – for my part, I acknowledge that my original comment was not particularly constructive or articulate.
I won’t reply individually to every comment disagreeing with me (some make good points).
What I do think very strongly is that this money would be better spent on safe cycle routes in and out of Lawrence Weston. The major routes – Shirehampton Road, Kings Weston Road, Henbury Road – are all conspicuously without any cycling provision at all. If I lived in LW and worked at Avonmouth, or in Filton, or in the centre of town, I would be deeply reluctant to cycle to work, especially in the dark.
Concentrating cycling in a ‘hub’ is the wrong approach, in my view.
I don’t know Bristol that well although I do have friends there and lived for a while in Bath so visited quite often, but a quick glance online shows that for Lawrence Weston to Avonmouth you can use NC 41, almost all off road and recently upgraded, to get into the centre of Bristol there’s the shared pavement on Portway which follows the Avon all the way into town and is currently being upgraded to make it better for cycling, and for Filton you can follow Portway as far as Sea Mills then turn east and make your way across through what looks like primarily quiet residential neighbourhoods, so not sure it’s as tough as you claim.
@broombroombroom “Concentrating cycling in a ‘hub’ is the wrong approach, in my view.”
Obviously “why not both” – eg. I’m in favour of both parks AND footways!
Are you saying that this is all coming from the active travel budget at the expense of general cycle infra? (Article isn’t clear). I guess at least some of it may be? But I suspect that the reason fixing the cycle infra locally hasn’t happened isn’t *just* due to a lack of cash…
15 million is a lot, but a mere comma when we look at the road budget.
There certainly is a perception problem though. “15 million for cycling? We can’t afford vast sums like that at a time like this*! Not when the upgrade to the bypass is needing 250 million…”
* It turns out over the last 50 years or so no matter what was happening economically it was never the right time to spend pennies on active travel, yet always a priority to drop pounds on more road space.
You’ve clearly never heard of HS2. And before you deride that as another example of public sector don’t forget the banking crash that’s led to no senior bankers loosing their jobs and the great God of finance turning to the State to bail the whole sector out.
There’s no room on the Broom for that motonormativity ….
It looks great. These kinds of facilities are few and far between. Yes, they can be expensive, so it should be stipulated as part of the planning proposal that they offer some subsided sessions to locals. Otherwise the argument sounds a lot like “we don’t want nice things over here”, or even worse “poor people don’t deserve nice facilities”. Dream bigger.
Maybe I’m just so far from the intended demographic but, I really can’t see who is going to use this enough to justify it’s existence.
I always enjoy a ‘You wouldn’t get this with the private sector’ comment. It’s like people don’t actually get involved in private sector projects to see the idiocy that this can involve and the fact that the bottom line is about profit, not the delivery of service.
I’m not saying that this therefore makes this a great scheme. I am saying playing the ball not man.
I spent most of my career working in engineering project management within private sector in the food industry.
I agree that there are certain projects and areas that should not be privatised because taking a slice of profit, reduces quality of service.
However, I am often appalled and amazed by the cost of many public sector engineering project costs. They tend to be ridiculously inflated. Maybe this is because of political medalling, preferred suppliers taking advantage of their status, or perhaps the involvement of too many highly paid officials, who brings no actual value to the process.
Is this the best Roadcc can do. There is nothing in the article. Has no one actually been in touch with the authorities and developers etc to check out a few facts? Has anyone actually been there. Looks to me as if this is just a rehash of some other public release rather than any useful journalism if that’s not an oxymoron.
Of course locals will object and why not? They will lose a resource for no benefit for most of them.
This is a planning application and I’m assuming there was a consultation held in accordance with the local authority’s statement of community involvement. You have been consulted, and any comments that are relevant to planning consideration (almost none of the comments above were) will have been taken into account.
It is not a referendum.