What is going on with this path?

A new path forming part of a future link between a new housing estate and industrial unit has a very narrow, inaccessible seven section, with the further path being blocked with a locked gate – but not to a secure compound, so why is it there?

A transcript of this video can be found at the Fiets website – https://fiets.uk/2024-02-02/who-cares-about-accessibility/

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Hello bicycle Ben here and in this video I’m over at the centry canal on the outskirts of Nan standing on a bridge over that Canal that links between the new Reus Logistics site that has gone up fairly recently in the last number of months and the new Housing Development

That’s going in of Gypsy Lane this is The utree Meadows development um long way to go with this development as you can see the um the main road Gypsy Lane is just beyond the new row of houses that you can see just going up um and

That marks the the boundary of this very large site and this bridge is going to form the link between that housing estate and the uh industrial unit or business unit however you want to describe it on the other side and sites Beyond it of course as well so quite an

Important link this one it will be an off-road cycle link so no motoru traffic going along here which is nice on an existing Bridge so this has been here for a long time used to form the Farmland link um across the canal so uh

A bit of a constraint I suppose in in a way in terms of walking and cycling infrastructure but we got 3 and A2 MERS of width approximately maybe a smidge more between the two walls but then if you look at the stub of path that’s gone

In for the Rena Logistics site we can see we have a problem this path is roughly 1.6 1.7 m wide it’s hard to get precise digital measurement because of the fence that’s in front but we’ve also got the uprights on either side the fencing that narrows the effective width

Of that stub of path even further and we’ve got the chicane barriers that have been installed for no good reason there as well so quite a restriction quite a pinch point for people walking and cycling through here it’s only small of course it’s a a short stub out to the

The main path that runs to the left and to the right there that itself is only about 3 m wide but that’s obviously just under twice what we’ve got with this particular path um but still I don’t see any reason why we had to have such a narrow bit of infrastructure installed

Here on the main path over there as well we do have a problem with a gate a uh a secure barrier um which we’ll get to in a bit but sticking with the bridge we’ve also got this path that goes down to the water’s edge I’m not quite sure the

Benefit of that is because the toe path is on the other side so I don’t know where that’s actually going We’ve Got A New Path as you can see so that doesn’t link up with this little uh slope um so I’m not sure what the purpose of that is

Other than a bit of leisure just to get down to the water’s edge but I don’t see why that path has to come up to the bridge here effectively splitting the availability of the uh width of the bridge and meaning we have to have this very narrow stub of path if that ramp

Wasn’t there then we’d have more space to widen out that access but talking about this gate I don’t understand the purpose of this gate as you can see I can get to the other side it was a roughly 15minute Loop to uh to get there just from the

Turnover bridge where you can see I was standing to where I’m standing now so it’s not securing the site it’s just stopping people using it for uh through access I don’t understand the purpose of that if you’re going to secure the site here what even is the point of the path

I do wonder if it maybe potentially is temporary but it doesn’t look very temporary at the moment it looks pretty heavy duty and pretty permanent so I don’t know what’s going on there the path as it goes on into the distance here rather than turning right to the

The bridge if you go straight on the path does loop around to centry Road or around that area I haven’t seen where it actually links onto covantry road if indeed it does link onto centry Road and whether it will do there’s also possibility or link to an underpass that

Gets you through to a local branch Line Station but I’ve yet to see that obviously the path isn’t accessible or open yet but the path behind me which I think we’ll just pan around to now that is perfectly open Perfectly accessible there’s nothing to say you can’t come

Down here there’s nothing saying it’s private there’s nothing saying no Public Access so I’ve just come down here to the other side of the gate and it’s all fine so I don’t understand why we have that gate and this path takes you down to centry road which then gets you to

The Griff roundabout and to other nearby industrial units or the route into bedworth as well so it would be quite an important route this path if it is secured and it’s permanently secured then we have a bit of a problem with it as I say the path here is a smidge under

3 m wide 3 m being the minimum desirable width for a shared use space so it’s disappointing that the developers haven’t managed to quite hit that it’s especially disappointing because there’s plenty of space for more width along this particular room Route 3 and 1/2 M presumably would have been possible had

The developer been so minded to provide that but they haven’t okay it’s not worth quibbling over a few centimeters to hit the 3 m now but it would have been nice to have the standards met thanks very much for watching I’ll keep an eye on what’s going on with this path

Over time of course as it develops um if you want to keep up to date with what’s going on with it as well then you can follow me on all the socials that’s fats. uk/ links fs. / links where you can find or the links to the socials and

As always if you found this video useful or interesting and fancy sending a tip my way then anything is very gratefully received thank you very much you can head over to my Kofi page it’s ko-fi.com bicycle Ben thanks very much for watching I’ll catch you next time