Cycle Winchester is a campaigning group aiming to make Winchester better by bike. With the group in talks with the council to improve Winchester roads and make them safer for cyclists, our reporter Celeste Haslam went to find out more.
Cycle Winchester began their efforts nearly eight years ago with a clear mission to make Winchester safer and more welcoming for cyclists of all ages and abilities. But how have they put this into action? Our slogan is very simple. It’s make Winchester better by bike. The most uh significant reason that people don’t cycle, the most commonly stated reason is because they don’t feel safe on the roads. Um, so I guess that would be our number one agenda would be to create facilities for cyclists which make it safer and more inviting. Cycle Winchester’s bike bus scheme is one of the ways they’re doing this. You take a destination like a school and the idea is just like a bus. You stop and pick up people on the way except this time we’re on our bikes that we ride together. We keep ourselves safe. to seek opportunities where cycling can be improved. The group are in talks with the council. Um we expect uh Middle Brook Street to be made uh legitimized for cycling. So there are going to be signs going up probably in the next week or so that will enable people to cycle through there again supporting this idea of the continuous bike route. What we’re really looking for from the council is for them to take on the task of building a network so that it’s not just individual little bits of cycle infrastructure, but they are they have a plan really to facilitate all of the the route. I’ve spoken with Hampshire County Council and they can either confirm or deny if these plans are in action to create a Winchester cycling lane network. Celeste Hasslam, Winchester News online.