About time for a Cycle Malvern update! In brief:
- The district council’s active travel officer has started work and we had a useful session with her.
- The county council’s Active Travel Stakeholder Group is meeting (quarterly), and a key planning process is starting soon.
- Neighbouring cycle campaign group Bike Worcester had a very active 2023.
- The city of Worcester is getting a bike hire scheme.
Topics discussed
Cycle Malvern recently had a chance to chat with Susan Martyr, the new Active Travel Project Co-ordinator at Malvern Hills District Council. This covered a wide range of topics, and we welcome the great potential for encouraging and enabling more everyday cycling and walking locally. To mention just some of what was touched on …
Cycling hazards
Potholes get a lot of attention as a key road hazard, not just for cyclists, but softer features can also create real problems. Overgrown hedges for instance can seriously restrict the useable width of cycle paths (such as on the shared path near Hanley Castle School, which can get dangerously narrowed in places), or make it hard to use a cycle rack properly, as in the recent photo below. However, top of our list requiring urgent action is a hedge at Morrisons on the retail park, causing serious visibility problems.
Facilities
We agreed that there is an ongoing need for well-designed placement of cycle racks around town, where people will want to use them. Cycle Malvern will continue to update its revamped rack gallery to show what is available, where. Contributions to that and ideas for new racks are welcome – please use the contact form to get in touch.
Safe and confident cycling
Road safety is a top concern for Sue, something which also tends to be high on reasons people give for not seeing cycling as an everyday activity. Local schools are generally keen to give Bikeability cycle training when it is on offer, but there has been less focus on getting younger children confident to be able to walk to school. Cycle Malvern is interested in helping with establishing either bike buses or walking buses – appropriate pupil training can help.
It would be great to follow the lead of Bike Worcester in putting on cycling confidence sessions for women, too.
Planning for future improvements
The active travel planning process, known informally from its initials as an Elsie Whip (!), should start properly very soon. That’s the Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP) for the Malvern area. The idea is to come up with well thought out, joined-up, schemes which can be implemented when (if) money becomes available. The focus tends to be on creating useful, safe and attractive routes, but the planning can cover other facilities too.
Some informal LCWIP sessions were held in September, with wider ‘stakeholder’ involvement due early 2024, closely followed by online public engagement. The process will be led by Worcestershire County Council’s consultants Jacobs, with Wyre Forest, Pershore and Droitwich LCWIPs following roughly the same timetable as Malvern. See ‘Infrastructure’ section of our Group Resources page for some helpful links.
There has been a lot of issues raised at the Worcestershire Active Travel Stakeholder Group meetings so far (variously held virtually and in-person). We look forward to some action!
Leading by example
Check out Bike Worcester’s annual review article, giving a good idea of great things they have been up to over 2023. Some tips for Cycle Malvern for the future maybe?
Good to discover that quite a few old bikes are being donated from Malvern residents for Worcester’s recycling project – could we do this locally at some point, coordinated by Cycle Malvern?
Worcester is joining the list of cities with public bike hire schemes, having given Beryl Bikes the contract to set one up. It should launch this spring. Ideas about some sort of general cycle hire in Malvern keep on being mentioned, maybe this will inspire definite action.