Now that the Planning Committee has made its decision to go ahead with the current ‘shared use’ design I can finally make my own views public.

Let me say from the outset that all parties agree on the need for a new bridge over the Thames to serve pedestrians and cyclists and we are all comfortable with the chosen position near the end of Fry’s Island.

Last night I criticised the Labour and Tory view that cyclists and pedestrians could share the new bridge without any separation. My only support came from Melanie Eastwood, the Green councillor and from a band of Reading cyclists who also objected to the current design.

Leaving aside the fact that the bridge design was partly based on a cycle and pedestrian count carried out last July on Reading and Caversham bridges which clearly caused some consternation as it differed widely from Reading Cycle Campaign’s own figures. The council did another count very recently and came up with figures that were double the originals and much closer to RCC’s.
My view is that pedestrians do not feel safe walking in amongst cycles, not all pedestrians are fully mobile and the mixed use would deter them from using the bridge. This will be made much worse as at the southern end of the bridge, cyclists have to make a 900 turn as they come off the bridge on to the ramp. This will cause conflicts between cyclists and pedestrians and the officer’s response that cyclists would all slow down for pedestrians is simply not very re-assuring to people wanting to walk over the bridge with push chairs, toddlers, etc.

The bridge needs to be a little wider and to have a narrow raised kerb to separate the cycles from the walkers. Otherwise we need cyclists to dismount as they are forced to do when using the new subway underneath Reading station.

When it came to the vote the Tories sided with the Labour Administration and only Melanie and myself opposed the planning application.