Scores of cycling advocates will again descend on the Cycle Hub to talk shop.
The Newcastle Cycling Campaign calls its members to gather once more. The AGM is to be held on 19 March 18:00 at the classy 'The Cycle Hub' at Ouseburn Quayside. Discussions will centre around priorities, with a draft having been announced in advance of the meeting. The proposed campaigning direction, not surprisingly, concerns working with policy and decision makers to get behind a people-friendly city with safe cycle space and better public places in Newcastle and Tyneside.
Discussion on our sister website GatesheadCycling sometimes goes into a spin on the subject of cycling numbers in Gateshead. So it's worth noting that recently we were reminded by the census that Gateshead is far from seeing a cycling revolution. With a meager 0.4 percentage point increase cycle commuting now has a modal share of 1.5% in Gateshead, "boosted" from 1.1% in 2001.
This is almost below detection limits! And should serve as an eye opener to Gateshead.
Council yesterday announced that the removal of a pinchpoint on Heaton Road, that saw the death of a cyclist in late 2011, is now underway.
We've been asking Newcastle City Council, the highway authority, to act since the tragic incident happened.
Immediately after the fatal incident, we wrote to all nine councillors (there are three adjoining wards), yet they were unable to speed up any investigation or help shed light on proceedings or improve transparency.
Our local group 'Jesmond Safe Cycling' met with staff of West Jesmond Primary School to discuss the road environment along Tankerville Terrace, such as congestion during the "school run", inconsiderate car parking (school drop-offs) and intimidating cycling conditions. There is a clear and general concern over drop-off points, some of which has been highlighted in the BBC documentary http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19867797.
To: Gary Macdonald (Newcastle City Council)
Cc: Harvey Emms, Cllr Nigel Todd, Cllr Henry Gallagher, Cllr Bill Shepherd (all Newcastle City Council), Bill Dodds (vice-chair of Forum)
Tell us what you think (comments enabled). The Committee has today announced the Campaign's priorities (in draft), listed below. We will finalise the priorities at the AGM on 19 March 2013, 18:00 at the Cycle Hub. Before the AGM, you can comment on them - just log in and type away or email us.
This offshoot of the Newcastle Cycling Campaign was set up because of several members' comments on
a) lots of students cycling in Jesmond
b) no child or elderly people cycling
c) lovely flat terrain and proximity to shops
d) lamentable cycling infrastructure
The council's financial year is coming to an end. This prompted us to review progress by checking forum's minutes and actions and thereby assessing the sincerity of the promise to develop Strategic Cycle Routes (SCR). Here's what's outstanding:
• (closing) budget plan 12/13
• new budget plan 13/14 to discuss priorities
• SCR programme
• Walker programme (for lessons learnt exercise)
