News

*** Save the date *** COGS AGM Tuesday 2nd November ***

The COGS AGM will be held on Tuesday 2nd November at the Salisbury Cycling & Social Club in Salt Lane. We are delighted that Tom Bromley, local author and regular contributor to the Salisbury Journal, has agreed to be our guest speaker. Tom is a keen supporter of cycling and his latest book "Bespoke", published earlier this year, is a guide to cycle-speak and saddle slang.

Save the date - more details to follow!

Wiltshire Council consultations

Salisbury junction improvements

There was an initial consultation on proposed junction improvements around Salisbury in June/July, and COGS were among those who submitted a response. There were a total of 290 responses to the online questionnaire and 67 emails, with a total of 1,214 comments on various aspects of the scheme. See https://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/article/4007/Salisbury-junction-improvements for full consultation responses.

As a next step an Outline Business Case will be submitted to the Department for Transport.

Wiltshire Climate Change Strategy

WC are consulting on their draft climate change strategy, which will help to shape the next five years of the council's action on climate change. The consultation runs from 1/9/2021 to 17/10/2021, and more information is available on the website at https://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/article/1004/Climate-strategy-consultation.

Please note that this includes details of a drop in session in Salisbury library on 14/9/2021 10:00-12:00, as well as a couple of online webinars on 15/9 and 30/9. Apologies for the short notice!

Wiltshire Council - Green and Blue Infrastructure strategy

At the same time, WC are consulting on 'Our Natural Environment Plan' - A Green and Blue Infrastructure (GBI) strategy for Wiltshire, which looks at the future for Wiltshire's natural environmental assets and how the council can help protect and enhance them for the benefit of people and biodiversity. See https://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/planning-bio-green-blue-infrastructure - responses also needed by 17/10/2021.

Salisbury Neighbourhood Development Plan (SNDP) Housing Sites Consultation

There is currently a housing sites consultation being undertaken as part of the Salisbury Neighbourhood plan. This is looking at whether housing could be put on some brown field sites - e.g. the Gasholder site in Coldharbour Lane, Brown Street car park and others. Details of what is being proposed are available on the survey form . Please take the opportunity to have a look, there are some interesting ideas being put forward and the views of the community are very important in Neighbourhood Planning.

Letter from David Wilson Salisbury Neighbourhood Development Plan Transport and Movement Topic Group Lead

To:

Parvis Khansari, Director - Highways and Environment, Wiltshire Council

Dear Mr Khansari,

As you will be aware, there has been significant under-investment in Salisbury’s cycle infrastructure and we are rapidly falling behind comparable towns and cities. The most concerning element is that many of Salisbury’s new housing developments are now occupied and, in nearly all cases, Wiltshire Council has not managed to deliver the off-site S106 cycle infrastructure linking the housing sites to schools, shopping centres and the city centre.

The Local Plan Review consultation has sharply increased the focus on the lack of progress, with concerns being discussed at the City Council, the Neighbourhood Development Plan steering group, topic groups and the newly formed Salisbury Neighbourhood Plan Connectivity Group. As far as we are aware, you do not have a pipeline of cycle schemes in the engineering design phase, which are required to serve the new developments.

The funding for local authorities in the Government’s three year spending review settlement (22/23, 23/24 & 24/25) being allocated for Active Travel is expected to be significant and, after recently attending your Salisbury Cycling Liaison Panel meeting, I am far from confident you will be in a position to start delivering these cycle routes within the next 12 months. As far as I am aware, the majority of planned cycle schemes in Salisbury have been stuck in the early transport planning phase for many years now and have not been moved into the engineering design phase.

I understand that the Government has recently written to your Council, setting out their requirement for you to implement high standard LTN1/20 compliant schemes in order that they can fulfil their £2 billion Active Travel spend commitment, set out in last year’s Gear Change proposals.

We now have 12 months until the government is expecting Councils to start delivering these LTN 1/20 cycle routes on the ground and,as far as I am aware, you do not have any of Salisbury’s key routes ready to go to into the construction phase. We are currently working with Heather Blake to prioritise the list of cycle routes for the emerging LCWIP, but all of these schemes are at a very early stage of scheme development. Therefore, in parallel to the LCWIP consultation activities over the coming months, we need to move at least three key cycle routes into the engineering design phases in order to be able to successfully spend your Active Travel grant settlement by the end of this parliament.

In order to assist in getting Active Travel schemes on the ground from 22/23, the Government is giving local authorities additional revenue funding to cover the next 12 month period (through the recently announced Capability Fund) to allow you to finalise LCWIPs and to design and procure LTN 1/20 compliant cycling schemes ready for delivery over the three years from 22/23, as part of the multi-year spending review settlement for Active Travel. We would like you to ringfence a significant proportion of this funding to help Salisbury get back on track.

I am aware that the LCWIP covering Salisbury has been in the development phase for many years and still needs to be consulted on and adopted. In addition, the 2018 Salisbury Transport Strategy refresh has yet to be adopted. It must therefore be a top priority to get both documents adopted this summer and, most importantly, issue the long awaited 2018 Transport Strategy Implementation Plan to give local people confidence that you have a pipeline of highway capacity and active travel schemes in train.

Salisbury NP Connectivity Group are extremely keen to work with your team to support you in progressing the above. There is much cycle and walking infrastructure required, however we recognise the need to be realistic and the priority must be to deliver the S106 funded cycle links from the largest new development sites to the city centre. An LTN1/20 compliant cycle route linking St Peters Place on the northern edge of Salisbury, through the city centre to the approved Netherhampton Rd, Harnham Development on the southern edge would create a very important and much needed north-south spine across the city. Much of this spine would be implemented and funded as part of the approved EA River Park (Maltings) scheme. The other top priority is the east west NCN corridor from Petersfinger to Wilton to link with the large new housing developments in Wilton.

These routes are deliverable with minimal third party land requirements and most have S106 funding available. If we can plan to deliver the north-south spine and the east-west NCN link, using a combination of S106 and Active Travel grant, we will have a framework in place by 2025 linking the new residential sites to employment and education, and this framework can be further enhanced in future.However there seems to be a blockage in moving this work from transport planning phase into engineering design.

Can you please therefore confirm:

1. Your agreement to moving the following three key cycle routes to link the new developments (some already occupied) to the city centre into the engineering design phases within the next few months

1. 1. St Peters Place –1250 dwellings

   2. Netherhampton Rd, Harnham 640 dwellings (plus 82 dwellings Harnham Park)

   3. Wilton UKLF site – 450 dwellings

2. That in the coming weeks a proportion of the Capability Fund revenue funding will be ringfenced to develop key cycle routes in Salisbury in order to achieve (1) above.

3. The programme for the LCWIP consultation & adoption. (I believe this is a DfT requirement to give them confidence you will be ready to start delivering from 22/23 onwards)

4. You will allocate additional resources to the other top 10 priority schemes in the emerging LCWIP to get them through outline design and feasibility ie allowing them to be ‘oven ready’/costed ready for future bidding rounds.

5. The 2018 Salisbury Transport Strategy Refresh will be adopted this summer.

6. The 2018 Transport Strategy Infrastructure Plan will be ready this summer.

Salisbury has many enthusiastic volunteers and groups working hard to help facilitate more active travel in the local area. Some of these groups are part of the newly formed Salisbury NP Connectivity Group and we feel that we are very well placed to assist you in meeting the Dft’s requirement for you to collaborate with local voluntary groups to develop and deliver initiatives that support the Active Travel funding objectives.

I would be grateful if ‘Salisbury Cycle and Walking Infrastructure to serve new developments’ could be added as an agenda item for your next Future Salisbury Place Board, which I believe is due to be restarted after the May election.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards

David Wilson

Salisbury Neighbourhood Development Plan Transport and Movement Topic Group Lead

Copied to:

John Glen MP,

Cllr John Farquhar, Chair of Salisbury Neighbourhood Development Plan Steering Group

Cllr Bridget Wayman, Cabinet Member for Highways, Transport and Waste

Cllr Ashley O'Neil, Portfolio Holder for Climate Change

Cllr Philip Whitehead Leader Wiltshire Council

Cllr Richard Clewer Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Corporate Services, Heritage, Arts & Tourism, Housing and Communities

Cllrs Brian Dalton, Matthew Dean, Derek Brown OBE, Atiqul Hoque, Sven Hocking, Simon Jackson, Pauline Church, Liz Sirman, Ricky Rogers

Salisbury Neighbourhood Development Plan Steering Group.

COGS

Salisbury NP Connectivity Group

Tim Robertson

It is with great regret that we have to announce that one of our great friends and long time COGS member Tim Robertson passed away last week after an accident at home. Tim was a lovely chap who will be sadly missed. Not only was he an active campaigner and super letter writer but he rode a mean pace. Rob Jacobs remembers the two of them riding home via the Wylye valley a couple of years back (probably on a Churches ride), it hurt Rob to keep up with Tim who had a few years on him. Rob is considering including a memorial ride on the summer listing as a tribute to Tim. Keep a lookout on the website.

Goodbye Tim, we miss you my friend!

Tim's son Alistair has forwared COGS the following message “In addition to providing a tribute for the service, I would be very grateful if you could circulate the message below to appropriate people. Many people will already know the sad news, but this message offers a chance for people to remember him simultaneously and we hope that this may provide a sense of community at this sad time.”

We are very sad to announce that Timothy (Tim) Robertson, Wilton, died on March 7th. He leaves behind his ever-loving wife Liz, his devoted children Alastair and Joanna and his adoring grandchildren Nancy and Edward.

Tim was a well-loved, ever helpful member of the community for decades and many people will wish to remember him, both with joy for a well-lived life and with sorrow that he is gone. Due to current restrictions, we will be holding a small funeral with only immediate family present. Therefore, we invite you to remember him in your own way at the time of the service, which is taking place at St Mary and St Nicholas, Wilton, at 1.30pm on Tuesday 23rd March. We invite you to pause and reflect on the 23rd and honour Tim in a way that feels suitable to you and your memories of him. If you are moved to do so, we would be grateful if you could send note of how you chose to remember him at the time of the service, to rememberingtimrobertson@hotmail.com.

Should you wish to make a donation, to be shared between the Alabaré Trust and St Mary and St Nicholas, this can be done via www.chriswhitefunerals.co.uk or c/o Chris White Funeral Directors, 12 South Street, Wilton SP2 0JS Tel 01722 744691

Best wishes, Alistair and the family

Study Finds that Low-traffic schemes benefit everyone, not just the better-off

Hirra Khan Adeogun, senior campaigner at Possible, said: “Much of the controversy around low traffic neighbourhoods is based on the false perception that they only benefit wealthy people living in residential areas. This report not only busts that myth but shows that in fact 9 in 10 Londoners could benefit from these measures - with those living in poorer neighbourhoods first in line.”

Creating space for safe walking & cycling in Salisbury - a strategy document presented to Salisbury City Council and Wiltshire Council

Wiltshire Council Provides Free Cycle Training for Adults

APPLY NOW PLACES LIMITED

The above link will take you to the Bikeability Adult information page

In the second paragraph highlighted in green click on "registration and self-assessment form".

Complete the online self-assessment form on the webpage, which will give WC more information about your current riding ability and allow us to tailor the session to your needs. Important, where asked, please enter ‘Wiltshire Council’ as the training provider name and bikeability@wiltshire.gov.uk as the provider’s email address. WC will then contact you to arrange training.

Please note that free training places are limited and offered on a ‘first come, first served’ basis. APPLY NOW!

Flooding on Avon Valley Path

Congratulations to Benji and friends for getting together to clear flood water from the A36 underpass on the Avon Valley path, as reported in the Salisbury Journal. Much appreciated by the many pedestrians, cyclists and wheelchair users who frequent this path and who had been forced to take a longer and more dangerous route along the road for the 4 weeks or so the path was flooded.