All articles relating to the Hayling Billy
We’ve received the following from Steve Mountain, the project manager:
We are running a little late (we originally hoped to have had the work done by now) due to the bad weather over the past weekend. HCC has also asked us to do some additional defence work whilst we are on site.
The expectation is that the Trail should be open to the public by the early part of next week.
We’ll let you know when we hear more.
We’ve received this from Steve Mountain, the project manager…
The Trail will be closed south of the Oysterbeds / Esso car park for up to 3 weeks to allow repairs to be undertaken to a section of the Trail damaged by storms in 2014.
P T Contractors from Southampton have been appointed to carry out the works which will see 110m of timber revetment built to protect eroding clay banks alongside the popular Trail. After the works are complete, temporary fencing which has been erected to prevent users for getting too close to the sheer drop into the Harbour can be removed. The works are funded by Hampshire County Council.
The closure is to allow heavy lorries and other plant to access the working site safely. Whilst recognising the temporary inconvenience the closure will cause, the public are asked to be patient and to respect the closure which is after all for their protection.
We understand from various sources that the work is due to start on Monday, 16 November.
We understand that work on repairing the section of the trail that eroded away last year is due to start in early November.
This will seek to restore the trail to the state it was in before the storms. It’s not a permanent fix, however. We can expect erosion to continue until a longer-term solution can be implemented.
The work will involve some lorries on the trail and, therefore, some closures. We’ll let you know if we hear more.
Cycle Hayling is planning to run a number of cycle surveys, to gather information about cycle traffic on the island and usage of the Hayling Billy Trail.
We are seeking volunteers to take part in our initial survey, which will be purely a counting exercise, based at the south of the bridge. A later survey will involve a count and a short questionnaire and will take place on the Hayling Billy Trail.
We plan to run the initial counting survey on Sunday 17th May (8am to 8pm) and Monday 18th May (7am to 7pm). It will essentially involve working in pairs over two-hour slots.
If you can spare two hours on either or both of these days, and would enjoy counting bikes (!), please contact Sue Underwood at sue@cyclehayling.org. Please state your preferred times/days and the number of time slots you can manage. Sue will then contact you with a choice of slots before the end of April.
If you’d like to help with the survey work but cannot make those dates, please get in touch anyway, as we hope to perform extra counts in May and the HB survey later in the year.
Hampshire County Council has run a number of surveys in the recent past:
Bridge traffic surveys in 2005 and 2011. Please see the recent post “Bridge traffic & cycling stats” with excellent summary from Wilf Forrow, at: https://cyclehayling.org/bridge-traffic-cycling-stats
These surveys were based on electronically recorded data. A similar electronic count is currently in progress at the north end of the bridge, and has been running since completion of the west-side cycleway. Our count will help to verify this data but also provide more detailed information on cycle journeys once on the island.
Hayling Billy Trail survey in 2004. Implementing this detailed survey was organised by Paul Fisher (HIRA) on behalf of HCC.
The survey can be accessed here:
https://cyclehayling.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Billy-Trail-Survey-2004.pdf
With the associated appendices at:
https://cyclehayling.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Billy-Trail-Survey-Appendices-part1.pdf
The Hayling Billy Trail survey looked at all types of users of the trail: cyclists, walkers, dog-walkers, disabled users, joggers and horse-riders. It included a count survey and a questionnaire survey.
The results showed that the trail was “heavily used, and most popular with cyclists”. In fact 70% of users were cyclists! A telling statement from the questionnaire analysis was that “The majority of people said that they would use the path more if it provided a continuous and safe route to Havant”.
The Portsmouth CTC web site has two fascinating articles explaining how the Billy Trail came to be developed as a shared cycle path.
I hadn’t realised the origins of the CTC Havant rides were so closely linked to the Billy Trail. See:
In this update…
Continue reading “Update from Cycle Hayling”
See below for an update from the Havant Transport and Implementation Team. We don’t yet have dates for the closure but will post them here when we do.
It’s good to see more improvement. It’s early days, but the new section seems much better than the southern section, so we’re hoping it will set the standard for future improvements.
Continue reading “Another Billy Trail closure – more improvement”
The section at the north of the island is now open again, although all users are being asked to treat the new surface with respect while it is bedding in.
There’s also some more work to do that will not require the path to be closed, so please watch out for people working.
Peter Drury’s blog has some photos of the new section and some taken while it was under construction.
We are all hoping that this will prove to be an excellent development that will show the way for future Billy Trail improvements. We’ll be keeping an eye on it as time goes on.
Thanks – once again – are due to Peter Drury who has done so much to bring this about through his Hayling Billy 50 work. I’m sure he’d be the first to point out that it’s been a team effort involving Havant, Hampshire, National Lottery and a bunch of others.
Havant Borough Council – acting as agent for Hampshire County Council – is closing the top end of the Billy Trail for three weeks starting on 19th May. That’s so they can lay a new surface over a 250 metre section.
Continue reading “Closure heralds a Billy Trail upgrade”
The latest progress report on the bridge works (Works Progress 7: 16th April 2014 on this page) says…
We’ll then move off the road and work on the ‘Hayling Billly 50’ Trail rebuilding, completing everything by mid June.
That’s a reference to Lottery-funded project initiated by Peter Drury as part of the Hayling Billy 50 years commemoration.
It looks like something is definitely going to happen. We understand that the project will:
We are concerned over the quality of recent cycle path development by both Havant and Hampshire so – at Peter’s request – I have documented our concerns with an offer to help. Peter has passed them to the project board.