Woodley Cycle scheme
The will it, won’t it saga continues. After the original plan for the Woodley cycleway was rejected by the town council earlier in the year, the new council administration managed to get the funding extended to allow a redesign and further consultation.
This consultation finished in early October, and we are awaiting the outcome. Unfortunately, there was some objection to speed and weight limits required to allow the new road layout/cycle scheme.
The complaints were from a small but vocal minority, encouraged by a town Councillor politically opposed to the scheme and the new Liberal Democrat coalition.
The final output of the consultation is due out shortly and this will likely result in some further redesign of the scheme.
A327 Shinfield to Arborfield Route
This has progressed much more slowly than was originally envisaged. Wokingham Active Travel Community Hub (WATCH) was invited to review the first draft proposed recently.
Talking to Adrian Betteride from WATCH, he felt the scheme had too many critical weaknesses, including unnecessary road crossings, diversions away from the main road and failure to address the most dangerous road features.
He advised that WATCH have written back to the council with recom-mended changes, and he is waiting to hear back.
Wokingham LCWIP
This should be ready before Christmas and will be reviewed by WATCH, who will be contributing to route prioritisation.
Charvil to Twyford station
WoBC have submitted a bid for levelling up funding to build a route between Charvil and Twyford station.
This would then connect on into Woodley via the LCWIP routes and then to Palmer Park and Reading.
The Charvil > Twyford > Woodley > Reading route has been identified as a high impact route giving those along the A4 corridor east of Reading a safe route to Twyford station and on into Reading.
This would be a very useful piece of infrastructure which will hopefully get funded and approved – watch this space.
Tanhouse Bridge
The Tanhouse Bridge is a bridge linking the area by Ormonde Road allotments in the South of Wokingham to the new Carnival pool hub.
At present there are two ‘temporary’ foot bridges that make crossing the rail tracks very difficult for healthy pedestrians, let alone anyone with additional needs or a pram or a bike.
This is due to be rebuilt and Network rail originally planned to replace the current bridge with two similar but more permanent ones.
WoBC is seeking to persuade Network rail to redesign the bridge so that steps are removed, and gradients improved to allow everyone to use this bridge. If agreed, it would provide a key route through the town for anyone wanting to avoid the very busy level crossing or equally busy railway bridge.
Kidical Mass
After the success of Wokingham’s inaugural Kidical Mass in the 40-degree heat of early August, we had to wait until 12 November for our second Mass. (We normally alternate and pool resources with the Reading group; however they already had rides planned in September and October before we linked up.)
And there will be a Reading ride on Sunday 10 December before Kidical Mass returns to Wokingham on Sunday 14 January. Please come along and support if you can! Details from https://kidicalmassreading.co.uk/.
Alex Cran
WoBC Campaigner for RCC
