Hayling Herald article October 2021

Here’s our Hayling Herald October 2021 column, for those that didn’t get to see it.

Cycle Safari

Emma & Simon Biggs at John’s Café

Have you tried Hayling’s Cycle Safari yet? It’s already lit up a lot of faces – and bikes! Just cycle round the south of the island, get your Cycle Safari map stamped at enough venues, and pick up a free set of cycle lights from Hayling Cycles. It’s good healthy fun, and you might find some nice bits of Hayling you didn’t know existed. It runs to the end of October, just in time to light up your bike in the darker evenings.

Martha & Mark Dombey at pop-up café

Full instructions and forms are on our website, at cyclehayling.org/safari, or you can pick them up from one of the venues listed there.

New cycle paths

South Hayling has plenty of safe roads to cycle on, for reasonably confident adults and older kids. But that’s not everybody. So we’re delighted that Hayling’s three new cycle paths should be ready by the time you read this. There are some issues with them, which Cycle Hayling has been working with the council to try to resolve.
And the biggest issue is the loose gravel surface, laid in error by the contractor, and which will be corrected. But only to a tighter, self-binding gravel, which Hampshire County Council insists on “to protect Hayling’s rural nature”.
Cycle Hayling says that’s not good enough for families to cycle, for scooters, for pushchairs, for disabled buggies, for less confident cyclists.
We stopped making roads out of gravel a century ago. If we really want to “protect Hayling’s rural nature”, we’d turn ALL our roads back to gravel. So we want to bring cycling into the 21st century, with good, safe, all-weather cycle paths, that everyone can do safe, everyday cycling and stay healthy.

Vote for change!

And we need your votes NOW to do that! Hampshire is consulting on it’s new Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan, which will determine our next 10 years.
We don’t think those plans are good enough or ambitious enough for Hayling (yet), and we think Hayling will be low on the priority list. Every other part of Hampshire will be competing for the limited resources available. If Hayling doesn’t speak up, nothing will change.
So PLEASE, visit cyclehayling.org/plans now, to see how you can help us by voting for better cycle infrastructure for Hayling. And that includes voting for safe, smooth, all-weather paths, that our kids can ride to school on without getting filthy, and everyone can ride with confidence they won’t skid.

Tip of the month

This month’s tip is about the most deflating aspect of cycling – punctures. Fixing them, but even better how to prevent them. Because we may get a few more until the contractor fixes the surface on the east-west path. More than I can write here, so I’m just going to say go to cyclehayling.org/punctures.

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