CYCLEWight

CYCLEWight is an advocacy group that seeks better cycle provision on the Island. We will cooperate with any organisation or individual that wishes to work towards that goal. The group participates in ways to encourage more people of all ages to learn of the joys and benefits of cycling.

Cycle Hub

There is a new bridle path open.  Public Bridleway called S41, has been opened. It runs over the track bed of the old railway line and links existing Bridleways S16 and S36. It is part of a 106 agreement, after a landowner asked permission to develop a solar farm on some of his land. It is a wonderful addition to the Rights of Way Network.  The owner is concerned that gates will be left open so it is important if these kinds of improvements are made to the cycling and walking infrastructure on the Island that they are well cared for by the users.

CycleWight have been informed by Island Roads there will be a temporary structure to continue to allow access. There will be times however when there will be no access at all when heavy machinery is being used. This should be for only a few hours at a time. Notification of a closure will be given 24 hours before its occurrence. There are no plans at the moment for the track to be closed at weekends. 

Access Funds

The Council have won a new round of funding for sustainable transport: The Access Fund. This time the grant is for three years and is worth over £1 million. This is the fourth time in succession that the Council has been awarded such grants; one of the few Councils in the county to have achieved this. The Council should be congratulated for having the initiative to apply and be willing to support the ideal. A special mention must be to Chris Gregory of A-To-There Solutions,, who has masterminded many of the later applications and helped to then coordinate much of the subsequent work.

As before the funding will be split into three strands:employment, education and tourism. The initiatives that will be carried out over the next three years will include; encouraging the 11-16 group to cycle, to encourage employers to use sustainable transport in their business and for holiday providers to be more aware of sustainable transport options. More details can be found on the Council web site.

Traffic in Newport

The Council has announced that it has been awarded £9.5 million to improve the transport infrastructure of Newport. This is good news for the people  of the Isle of Wight. We are concerned though that this will totally ignore the needs of cycling and walking. We have seen some of the earlier proposals from 2010 which saw pavements being removed and roads being made wider to the detriment of all road users.

As part of our work on a cycle strategy we have been looking at strategic paths across the Island and in particular making Newport more walking and cycling friendly. We have asked to be involved in the formation of the proposals. It does seem to state the obvious but if people travelled more sustainably there would be no need to spend £9 million! Just think how much cycling infrastructure could be built for that and what a difference that would make. 

Planning Applications
This has been a busy time for CycleWight. There have been several planning applications on which we have commented: Carisbrooke College, Ryde House, Christ the King College, a housing development at Rookley and the cycling hubs at Cowes and Newport.  The decision on some of these are still pending but it is good to report that our objections to the paltry provision for cycle parking at the new Carisbrooke College was improved. The school's travel plan is to be written now rather than when the new college is opened. Let us hope we just as successful with some of the others.

Fill That Hole Campaign

All cyclists need to report any defects in road surfaces. The CYCLEWight committee suggest that you use the

"Fill that hole" 

campaign on the CTC website to report dangerous road conditions. There is also an "App" available for IOS and Android smartphones that uses GPS to tag the location of the pothole or defect, plus it knows where you are and will send the report to the closest Council authority.

Using The CYCLEWight Calendar Below

If you click on an event, you may find additional information, or a link to the location of the event. You can easily add these events to your own Google calendar

CYCLEWight Newsletter

The latest Newsletter [May 17] is available HERE...

Cycle Forum

Minutes of the Cycle Forum meeting [Jun 17]  can be viewed HERE...

CYCLEWight Committee

Minutes of the Committee meeting [Jun 17]  can be viewed HERE...

Cycle Strategy

The CycleWight Cycle Draft Strategy for the Isle of Wight is now ready for feedback. Click on this link to Download.  Its purpose is to give a clear view of what is needed to make conditions better for as many people as possible to be able to cycle safely and comfortably. We'd love to hear from you about how we can improve the strategy before we publish it.

Please email any feedback on the strategy to cyclewight@gmail.com by 31st July 2017.

The three questions below may help you address any comments you may have.

Does the strategy cover the main areas? Is there anything missing?

Are there any areas you think are unnecessary or unhelpful?

Are there any key routes that are missing between the main town and villages which you think are of strategic importance? Or a route that should be removed?  

While we can't promise to include all changes that may be suggested, we will read and consider all responses and look at how we can accommodate the range of views we receive back.

Please do note that the routes shown are very much just an indication of the approximate route in most cases. There may be many reasons why particular sections are not appropriate (land ownership/use, ecology,topography). Development of any of these routes would be subject to extensive discussion with local landowners and other stakeholders as part of feasibility studies to establish whether a route is possible, and determine the exact course.

CycleWight see it as an essential document for us to put forward the case for more provision for cycling. We are most grateful to Bob White, who is a transport planner, who has looked at our ideas and written them into the correct format. It includes general principles, which we would like to see adopted as well as maps of strategic routes that we feel are essential to encourage people to walk and cycle.  Our eventual aim is to present it to the council as a means of clearly stating what is needed for the Island to truly become Bicycle Island.

The Government has printed its national cycling strategy.   As part of the initiative it is offering a grant, to a limited number of local authorities, to provide consultants to help draw up plans for cycling and walking initiatives. It is pleasing to report that the Council has decided to apply for this additional support. It is a competitive process so there is no guarantee of success. CycleWight has been part of the bidding process and it is good that the work we have done over the last few months has been recognized.

Sadly the government’s cycling strategy does not come with very much additional funding. Much of it has to be bid for so there is no guaranteed amount of money to come to the Island. It will be up to the Council and groups like us to set out the case to attract the funding. 

Permeability (not cycle clothing) 

You may well have read the Council has been awarded over £9 million to improve the transport infrastructure in Newport. We have written to be asked to be part of this. At present we have had no reply.

We are determined to make sure pedestrians and cyclists are not overlooked in this process. We applied for and have been  awarded a grant from Awards for All, which is part of the lottery, to do a permeability study of Newport. This basically means we are going to look at ways to make Newport more cycling and walking friendly. CycleWight will then hopefully work with the Council and Newport Town Council to implement our ideas. It is very much aimed at doing things which are simple and relatively easy to implement.

We hope that if this process is successful we will be able to share our knowledge with other towns on the Island.

The Active Travel Innovation Grant

This is a new grant to encourage people to walk and cycle. This is part of the Access Fund which the Council has won to encourage people to travel in a more sustainable way. It is different from some of the earlier initiatives in that it is asking people to be as creative as they can be. The more unusual the idea the more chance it will have to gain this funding. Please follow the link below.

https://www.iwight.com/council/OtherServices/Sports-Development-Unit/EventsPage

Community Cycle Work Stations

We have added a new section to the drop down menu 'Riding on the Isle of Wight' which is community cycle work stations.  There are at present 5 with one more due to open soon:

Cowes - Red Jet Terminal, Cowes - Floating Bridge, Newport - Riverway Centre, Ryde - Waterside Pool and Wight Cycle Hire - Station Road, Yarmouth. Chale Green Stores are in the process of building their facility. This a great addition to the whole Bicycle Island concept. It would be brilliant if there were even more added around the Island. Do you know of anyone who may be interested in having one at their business?

Sponsored Ride

A rather different sponsored ride is the Historic Churches’ Ride and Stride on Saturday 9th September. This event happens every year. Many churches on the Island open their doors to walkers, cyclists who try to visit as many churches as possible in a day. Half of any money raised goes to a nominated church and half to the Hampshire branch of historic churches organisation. This money is then given to historic churches to help in their maintenance. It is a wonderful opportunity to see inside buildings that are often closed. Details of open churches and sponsor forms are available from http://www.hihct.org.uk/rideStride_taking.php

As part of the sustainable transport funding CycleWight were asked to carrry out a survey of cycle parking on the Island. We completed this  just over month ago and have found that there are over 700 racks of varying types around the Island that can be used. Some are great, check out Vernon Cottage and Ventnor Botanic Garden, and some are awful. We were also asked to identify places where there was a need for racks. We have done this through the committee and social media but if you have any ideas please contact us. 

Some of you may have heard  but there is now a Bicycle Island app. This is an exciting development which is the first 'smart cycling corridor' in the country. It is based on the Cowes to Newport cycle track. You can sign up by using a smartphone, just look on the app store for Bicycle Island. It has two purposes. Firstly it is meant to encourage people to cycle. It records journeys along the track. The app sets regular distance challenges for the community to aim at. Every user’s journey along the cycle route contributes to the overall target. If the target is reached a local Isle of Wight charity gets a donation. Secondly visitors to the Island can use the app to find out about thiar journey along the track with interesting infomration. This has been launched in the last few weeks.

Cycle Festival