Hello from WelHatCycling. As you can see from the logo below, we are now officially at Cycling UK partner group, so part of the wider campaign to develop cycling UK wide.
Oaklands and Woolmer Green: Hertfordshire County Council has plans for the B197 to reduce traffic speeds, add wider pavements and a cycle path, with a particular focus on active travel to and from the primary schools. The consultation closes on Friday 27th February 2023, so if you’ve not commented, please do so and support this scheme.
Campus East objection: WelHatCycling has objected to the plans for 313 flats behind Waitrose because the plans for cycle routes are not good enough. There’s no link from the new development to the new cycle route on Hunters Bridge (0.1mile!) nor via Oaklands College to Campus West (0.3miles!). The developers say local roads are safe for cycling. They clearly didn’t ride on The Campus before writing their report. We believe this means the plans fail to meet the UK Government rules in LTN 1/20 Cycling Infrastructure Design and the Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan for Welwyn Hatfield, produced by our local councils in 2022.
We just need to see 0.4miles of new safe cycle path constructed. This would also safely connect the Ayot Greenway and north WGC to the town centre and the station. There’s plenty of space around the outside of The Campus to do this, as you can see in the picture.
Hunters Bridge: We are very pleased to see the completion of the new two way cycle path over Hunters Bridge which for the first time creates a safe off road link into the centre of Welwyn Garden City. It’s now possible to cycle off road all the way from the town centre to Hertford Football Club, Stanborough Park and Hatfield Market Place. It takes 6 months for new schemes to properly change travel habits so we are interested to know about your experiences of using it so far. Do read our news item on this and the additional works in the centre of town now being constructed.
Alban Way litter pick, 25th March 2023: Our annual clean up of the Alban Way by the Galleria, sadly always the worst bit, is on Saturday 25th March from 09:30 to 12:00. Please join us if you can. You don’t have to do the full 2.5 hours, every bit helps. Expect us to clear 40 bags of rubbish.
Local elections: There are elections to Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council and Hatfield Town Council in May 2023. Do please ask candidates knocking on doors about their plans to improve cycling in your ward. They need to know your vote depends on them taking action.
You can find out more about WelHatCycling on our website and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. If you want to help us in what we do or just want information on cycling locally, please email us: chair@welhatcycling.org.uk or comment below.