We’re delighted that in 2024 Hampshire County Council again wants to make it easier to walk, cycle, wheel or scoot, and wants our help to tell them where physical barriers make them awkward or challenging. And that includes mobility scooters, wheelchairs, pushchairs, buggies, disabled trikes like Hayling’s Cycling Without Age, and cargo bikes.
Unfortunately, they’re not making it easy to find on their website, so Cycle Hayling is here to save you typing it in – just click this link: hants.gov.uk/News/20241101SurveyWalkCycleBarriers.
And you only have until Sunday 22 December 2024.
And they’re particularly asking for problems with cycle signage, and cycle parking, which ties in beautifully with Cycle Hayling’s £10,000 CIL award for new bike racks.
It all started when I cycled to Hayling beach last summer, and was appalled to find nowhere to lock my bike securely. so we applied for Council CIL funding to install some, and WE’VE WON £10,000. Not just for the beach, but for wherever they’re needed across Havant Borough. We’re hoping to stretch the money further by using volunteers to install as many as possible.
So don’t just tell Hampshire where we need bike racks, tell us, and even better, if you might be able to help install them, contact us at cyclehayling.org/contact.
Several cycle paths on Hayling still have barriers, which are now recognised as hindrances, not just to to cycling, but to double buggies and the disabled as well. And some which prevent the “Cycling Without Age” electric trishaw from giving disabled people fresh air.
But nothing’s much changed since 2022 – here’s the barrier submission I sent to Hampshire then. I also included previous documents on anti-motorbike barriers that only keep out legitimate users, and the Lethal Bollards on NCN22 at Farlington Marsh, which put at least one person into A&E, and which we haven’t been able to remove yet.
And Cycle Hayling’s Chair, Joy, helped Sustrans with their 2023 nationwide NCN barrier audit, to remove all physical barriers from the NCN, using their very impressive barrier audit phone app. (The NCN is the National Cycle Network, including NCN2 which runs down the Billy Trail). It’s currently only for NCN barriers, but it begs the question of whether we can use the same app to highlight barriers elsewhere too.