LETTER: Serious problems with cycling plans

We heard a little more about Liberty’s plans for North Horsham at Thursday’s ‘Reference Group’ meeting
By The Newsroom
Published 26th Sep 2015, 15:00 BST

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. It was clear that, in the face of the huge funding shortfall for West of Horsham, planners are struggling to prevent gridlock on the A264, let alone to address their legal responsibility under the NPPF to ‘give priority to pedestrian and cycle movements’.

Liberty gave a long list of reasons why they will not be providing safe underpasses for people walking and cycling across the A264 –but the fundamental reason really does seem to be that WSCC did not ask for them.

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The current plan is to build just one pedestrian/cycle bridge at the Rusper Road roundabout, but it looks perilously close to the ancient motte and bailey, raising the question whether it will actually be built. We were pleased to see plans for cycle access to the existing railway underpass, which we campaigned for, but there was still no plan for a direct path it to link to the Horsham-Crawley cycle route at Wimland Road.

We heard that cycle provision within the development itself will be based on out-dated cycle lanes while hundreds of waste lorries per day thunder past on residential roads.

Off-site work falls to WSCC via a ‘financial contribution’ from Liberty –the concern is that WSCC will not have enough money do what is needed for motor traffic, let alone think about the needs of people walking and cycling who will be affected by large increases in traffic and problems with the railway station plans.

If this development is to go ahead, there is still a long way to go to sort out the serious transport problems.

Ruth Fletcher

Horsham District Cycling Forum, Ashleigh Road, Horsham

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Related topics:North Horsham