The safety of people walking and cycling is being put at risk by a council’s changes to a high street in the North East, campaigners have argued, the under-fire plans coming just months after the local authority claimed it wanted to prioritise active travel and make routes “safer and easier” for people to walk, wheel and cycle.
A 500m stretch of protected cycle lane on Gosforth High Street is to be removed, the council insisting that new cycling links will be provided on routes that run parallel to, rather than on the high street itself.
However, the proposal — which will also see a stretch of painted cycleway removed — has been criticised by campaigners, SPACE (Safe Pedestrian and Cycling Environment) for Gosforth arguing Newcastle City Council has “prioritised vehicle speed over road safety”.
The changes are explained by the council as being part of an attempt to “improve bus routes along the Great North Road”, with new sections of bus lane added and cyclists moved to parallel streets, although there is little more detail of what the new cycle routes that are promised might look like.
A pedestrian crossing is also to be removed, but the council insists a signalised puffin crossing will replace it and improve options for pedestrians. The route will also be given a 20mph speed limit. A public consultation on the changes is currently running but ends today (Tuesday 3 February), SPACE for Gosforth urging residents to stand up to the proposals.
Great North Road, Gosforth (credit: Google Maps)
“Once again, Newcastle City Council have prioritised vehicle speed over road safety, treating Gosforth High Street as an inconvenience to be bypassed rather than a destination for the local community,” the campaign group said.
“Newcastle City Council has published plans that include the removal of 500m of cycle lanes from Gosforth High Street, including the protected cycle lane from Salters Road to Regent Farm Road. This comes only four months after the Council formally adopted a new Movement Strategy that says the Council will prioritise active travel and create a high-quality cycling network linking homes and shops.”
SPACE for Gosforth also pointed out that when that Movement Strategy was adopted, in September, the council committed to “adopting a network-wide approach of safe, high-quality routes that connects homes, schools, jobs, healthcare, and shops”, a sentence campaigners suggest perfectly describes the very infrastructure the local authority is now proposing to remove.
At the time, Newcastle City Council also stated: “By making it easier for everyone to get around, we can help people to be more active, happier and healthier by making it safer and easier for people to walk, wheel, cycle and use public transport.” The council committed to creating “safer and more vibrant places for people to live, work, study, and play by reducing traffic and improving air quality that “improve our wider environment by reducing Newcastle’s carbon footprint”.
However, just four months on, this proposal in Gosforth has raised questions about Newcastle City Council’s commitment to its Movement Strategy.
One mum-of-two, who was knocked over with her eight-year-old daughter at a junction on the route back in 2019, told the local newspaper, the Chronicle, that the council was “making it more difficult to walk and cycle on the high street while also not doing anything to make the surrounding streets safer”.
Another local resident Siobhan Still added: “Gosforth High Street is the focus of our community. The council’s own Movement Strategy states that neighbourhood centres like ours will be places that prioritise people over traffic, yet these proposals do the opposite. The removal of cycle lanes will endanger the lives of children like mine, making it harder for them to travel healthily and independently. We urge the council to reconsider.”
Gosforth High Street cycle lane (credit: SPACE for Gosforth)
The Labour-run council has also attracted criticism from local politicians, Lib Dem councillor Colin Ferguson suggesting the proposal to remove the cycle lanes would create the “worst of all worlds”, not the best of both worlds.
“Instead of making it easier to walk or cycle, these plans create new bottlenecks and dangerous crossing points. Residents gave their feedback a year ago, yet they’ve been handed the same flawed scheme with only minor tweaks. This isn’t about local need; it’s about spending a specific pot of money regardless of the consequences,” he said.
A spokesperson for Newcastle City Council said: “We recognise that Gosforth High Street is a busy area, both as a local shopping and leisure destination as well as being a major public transport route into Newcastle city centre. Our focus is on making sure the public space and the highways network works well in order to meet these very different requirements and we are continuing to develop proposals based on community feedback.
“Last year we consulted on extensive proposals for both public transport and active travel, including plans to remove the space that was temporarily allocated for cycling on the High Street to make way for an additional bus lane. This consultation attracted over 1,000 responses.
“We have just completed a further phase of consultation regarding proposals which relate specifically to improvements for public transport as this element of the work would be funded through the regional Bus Service Improvement Plan, aimed at improving bus journeys. We will review all consultation feedback regarding the bus improvements before finalising plans.
“Work to improve active travel in the area would be funded separately and, in response to previous consultation feedback and subsequent traffic modelling data, we are continuing to develop these proposals, which include plans for better cycling links that would run parallel to, rather than along, the high street itself.
“We will share a further update regarding these plans once further work to develop them has been completed.”