More extensive new proposals for cycle racks to be introduced by Wiltshire Council as part of its £400,000 resurfacing of the High Street look set to end the row that has engulfed Marlborough town council.
A petition signed by 195 people was presented to the council last month after it had earlier decided, by nine votes to four, to ask the highways authority to re-examine a cycle parking initiative from Transition Marlborough.
This would have meant the loss of two parking spaces when resurfacing starts next month, one outside The Polly Tearooms and another two outside Valentino’s on the other side of the High Street as the sites for cycle racks. But the council also asked for cycle parking in the centre of the High Street to be considered too.
Now the council’s Planning Committee will on Monday have on its agenda the results of a meeting that took place on June 26 between Marlborough’s mayor, Councillor Guy Loosmore, town clerk Shelley Parker, two representatives of Transition Marlborough’s cycling sub-group, Wiltshire’s area engineer and the council’s community area manager.
They are now recommending that the existing cycle parking attached to the planter on “the bulge” on the High Street be replaced with a cluster of five cycle racks providing space for up to 10 cycles.
That two more cycle racks be provided on the large brick build-out near the proposed new Morrison’s supermarket and that two paid for central parking spaces be exchanged for cycle parking.
And that the existing provision of five cycle racks outside the library be repainted and given new signage to make them more visible.
“These proposals would establish four cycle parking areas in the High Street and increase the number of cycle parking spaces,” says the Planning Committee report. “The original proposal for using free parking spaces is not included.
“The suggested proposals are subject to agreement by Wiltshire Council’s area board.”
The report says that the advantages of the new proposals mean that there will be more frequent parking provision for cyclists, that the racks would be in the right place with good visibility and that they do not cause any obstruction to pedestrian flow and will be under constant surveillance.
And it adds: “Of 240 paid car parking spaces on the High Street, losing one or two constitutes a loss of less than one per cent of available car parking in exchange for a significant increase in cycle parking.
“This all falls in with the most recent strategies under Wiltshire’s local transport plan and varies national and governmental agendas.”
The report concludes with a recommendation from the town clerk asking councillors to “agree the revised proposals…for improved and appropriate support for cyclists” and that the resolution be passed to the area board for its next meeting on July 16.
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