Work begins to repair and refurbish town centre cycle lanes

Work has now begun to repair and refurbish cycling and green transport provisions in Southport Town Centre.

Sefton Council say hundreds of thousands of cycle journeys have been made on the town centre cycle scheme, which was introduced in the town as part of Central Government’s mandated Emergency Active Travel Scheme.

Now Sefton Council’s Active Travel team have commissioned contractors to begin works to refurbish road markings, signage and replace vandalised traffic bollards along both Hoghton Street and Queen’s Road.

These works will ultimately improve the facilities available to cyclists and other road users

Refurbishment works include:

• Amended and retouched road markings
• Changes to cycle lane width where space permits
• Enhanced junction marking
• Installation of permanent separation wands
• Implementation of additional signage

Cllr John Fairclough, Sefton Council’s Cabinet Member for Locality Services, said: “We are all too aware that Sefton, like many other councils, were told by the Government to quickly implement strict active travel schemes.

“Owing to the timescales set to us by Central Government, there was relatively little time to develop the Hoghton Street project fully and this was further compounded by a national shortage of materials available to our contractors.

“Now following a detailed series of independent reviews, we have identified and implemented a series of  modifications which we feel are necessary to ensure this scheme is as effective as possible.

“Once these modifications have been implemented, we remain fully committed to reviewing the scheme after six months

“Neither the Department for Transport nor the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority have provided definite criteria on which to judge the successes of such a scheme.

“As such our teams will use detailed and publicly available cycle usage data, along with further survey work, to inform future decisions over whether this scheme becomes permanent, modified further or is ultimately removed.”

For more information about Active Travel schemes and provision across Sefton, visit www.sefton.gov.uk/parking-roads-travel/transport-policy/your-streets-your-say/