Can't remember if there has been a thread about this before, so please
forgive me if you've already seen this.
Bath and North East Somerset (BANES!) council, developed a Horse-riding
strategy which includes allowing horses access to all the cycle paths in
their area, including the incredibly popular Bristol-Bath cycle path, which
has 1 million + trips a year.
The council then spent 10 months consulting horsey groups and a few others.
They did not consult any cycling groups, not the Bath Cycling Club, not the
CTC. We found out about it three days before the Executive member for
Transport, Sir Elgar Jenkins, was due to make the decision, and he received
a number of emails demanding proper consultation. He decided to postpone
the decision, which should have been made at the end of November. We were
informed in latish of December that the council would be holding a Scrutiny
Panel to examine the issue and to make reccomendations to the Exec member.
That meeting was yesterday the 10th.
A lot of evidence was put forward, which I won't bore you with, but that of
the horsey people was rather remarkable. They claimed that there was no
risk at all from horses, and that this was proved by a report from Surrey
university which had researched horse/cyclist conflict and found there
wasn't any (this despite the fact that a cyclist was killed by a horse in
BANES less than two years ago).
Having had somewhat less than the 10 months the horse lobby had had to
prepare their case, we didn't know about this report, but I downloaded a
copy today
I attended the BANES Scrutiny Panel meeting yesterday, and was allowed to
make a presentation (called "disgraceful" by two councillors!) as were the
horseriders, Ramblers, police, NFU and a couple of others.
During the presentations, the horsey people claimed that there was no risk
whatsoever from introducing horses onto cycle paths. They claimed that this
was proved by a report from Surrey university, which no cyclists were
familiar with, since we haven't had time to do the research. I downloaded a
copy today
http://www.countryside.gov.uk/WiderWelcome/Greenways/publications/index.asp?printable=true
Far from proving anything about horse/cyclist conflict, it isn't even clear
whether the researchers observed a single interaction/passing movement
between a cyclist and a horse. They also carefully selected the sites to be
observed by making sure that they were dead straight and quite wide, and so
automatically excluded the areas where conflict was likely to occur. They
did discover that pedestrians wouldn't walk where they felt threatened by
cyclists: this effect will be multiplied by horses.
The chair of the meeting complimented the horsey people on "their
comprehensive report". I had to point out in my presentation that they had
had 10 months to produce it, whilst we had had a couple of weeks, including
Christmas and new year. It hardly seems fair that one side has 10 months
and the other has a couple of weeks at the busiest holiday time.
All of the councillors mentioned the lack of consultation, but the one who
criticised this error the most was in favour of a quick decision, apparently
without any further consultation! There appears to be no reason why this
decision should be made urgently, so I'm not sure why the councillor wants
it made asap, and the only reason he gave was that the horsey people were
waiting.
If you live in BANES, please consider writing to your local councillor,
demanding equal consultation with the horse lobby, but please make it soon!
The officers will now compile a draft report, which will then be agreed by
the panel, but there was no indication of how long this will take.
--
cheers
Burt