Hayling Billy trail restoration
The Hayling Billy trail is the only traffic-free cycle route off the island. It was the old Puffing Billy railway for over 100 years, then transformed in the 1980’s, following a campaign by a group of local cyclists inspired by Sustrans. But 40 years later, the surface has deteriorated badly, and sections of the trail have collapsed into the sea, which are very difficult to repair with such strong nature protections. Part of the northern section got a red self-binding gravel surface a few years back, which was better, but not perfect.
Cycle Hayling has been campaigning for a smooth, all-weather surface since we started in 2010, and the northern section from the bridge to the Esso garage car park will be finished in January 2025!. Active Travel England awarded Hampshire County Council a £600,000 grant, ring-fenced for active travel, so it was never available for potholes or sea defences.
And Hampshire and Havant Councils have jointly invested another £100,000 in a Feasibility Design for the rest of the Billy Trail, including looking at links towards the centre of the island. And where the current billy trail is at risk of being washed away by the sea, alternative inland routes will be investigated along with measures to protect it from future erosion without impacting nature.
Cycle Hayling says this is wonderful news, not just for cyclists, but for walkers, the disabled, horse-riders and nature lovers. And for motorists, by getting cyclists off our narrow, overloaded main road.
- It will try to cater for everyone – cyclists, walkers, parents with child buggies, wheelchairs for the disabled, nature lovers and horse riders. Where there’s room, it will have an adjacent ‘country path’, for walkers and horses.
- It’s PLANNED to have a natural-looking, all-weather surface, like the Langstone end of the Billy Trail. That’s asphalt underneath, topped with stone chips embedded in resin to make it less road like and more natural, and less vulnerable in wet and icy weather to skidding, spray and muck, with a slight camber to help rain wash off mud and leaves.
- BUT, Hampshire is considering whether to leave it as black tarmac and use the cost saving to patch up some of the worst other sections.
- It will use recycled materials in the base layer, saved from past road repairs.
- Future maintenance is unclear. First reports suggested it would be by Hampshire Highways, which we supported because Hampshire Countryside Services don’t have the money or the expertise. In the past, Hampshire Highways would only take on cycle path if paid in advance for the next 30 or 40 years maintenance.
- Victoria Rd West will also be improved, next to the Esso garage, which has caused quite a few cycling accidents over recent years. This is the only safe cycle route out of the North Hayling estate.
Hampshire County Council is the transport authority, and own most of the Billy Trail, but they’ve delegated more than ever before to Havant Council. That’s great for Hayling, because Havant have much better local knowledge, great cycle path expertise, and better communications.
A key issue will be gaining support from all users of the Billy Trail, not just cyclists. Many people are concerned that e-bikes and e-scooters will go too fast and cause accidents, or that it will become too much like a road, or even that motor vehicles will be allowed (they won’t).
So it’s really important for all cyclists to demonstrate that we can share paths respectfully with walkers. I know cyclists in a hurry hate slowing down, but walkers loathe bikes whooshing past without warning too – so use your bell! But legal e-bikes cut the power at 15mph, which is about normal cycling speed. And slowing down isn’t so painful because e-bikes are much easier to get back up to speed.
Ideally we’d have separate paths for cycling and walking all the way along, but some of the edges are protected by law for nature – which we all support – and making it wider would make it look too much like a road. But traffic volumes are low, so we think 3 metres is wide enough, especially where’s there’s room for the ‘country path’ alongside.
Many of the new cyclists we hope it will attract will be lone commuters, riding in single file, so they won’t need as much space as a leisure group who spread across the path. We’d like some sort of gentle segregation by signs or surface markings to ’nudge’ walkers and cyclists to their own side. We’d suggest walkers on the sea side, cyclists on the inland side.
And it’s over double it’s old railway width of 4 foot 8 and a half inches! It’s always been a transport link – it’s first century as The Puffing Billy railway line, from 1867 until the Beeching cuts in 1963. It then languished for 20 years, almost unusable, until 1984, when a group of Havant cyclists persuaded John Grimshaw (later to found Sustrans) to come up with a design to transform it, which they used to lobby Havant and Hampshire Councils. And it later became a core part of the Sustrans National Cycle Network as NCN2.
But it’s gone mostly downhill since then, with very little maintenance, rough surfaces, mud, floods and persistent erosion from the sea.
We’ve tried to shortern the northern end dogleg by the railway signal – cyclists don’t like detours, and that always seems a psychological ‘backward step’. So we were hoping we could go straight across inside the lagoon, but apparently there are too many natural protections.
Many people have asked why are we tarting up the bit that’s already pretty good – why aren’t we starting with the WORST bits? Blame the lovely Tory government of the time – the project had to complete in 12 months, or they’d take back all the money. And the only section that could be finished by then is the northern section – just in time for the May elections. I think that’s cynical electioneering, and not the right thing for residents of Hayling.
WORSE …… the last Tory government then slashed future Active Travel funding by two-thirds. The £600,000 came from Active Travel England’s round 4 Active Travel Funding, and only covers the first 1.2 kms – we’ll need much more.
Please write to Alan Mak today, asking him to reverse the Active Travel cuts and get us the funding to protect the Billy Trail for the next 30 or 40 years.
If you want to support our efforts, please register your support; registration is free and we will keep you up-to-date with progress.