We reported on 6th March that the Old Shoreham Road cycle scheme had been scrapped following a Council response to a question asked by Green Group Transport Spokesperson, Cllr Ian Davey. On Thursday 25th March, Cllr Geoffrey Theobald officially confirmed at the Environment Cabinet Member Meeting that they would not be proceeding with the proposals because of ward councillors’ concerns over safety, although no expert evidence was presented to back up this claim.

A public attendee at the meeting reported that Cllr Theobald cited a further reason that the general cycling community did not want the cycle lane as he had not received any emails in objection to them scrapping the scheme. However neither Bricycles nor the City Cycling Forum with which the Council claims to "consult" were formally told about the scrapping of the scheme.

At the Cabinet meeting a Conservative councillor also gave anecdotal evidence that her local constituents thought the scheme was a poor idea, which it would appear has more weight than the results of the formal public consultation on the scheme.

Even a Bricycles letter of concern about the plan was used by the Council to support their reason to scrap the scheme, taking the letter out of context and omitting to mention any detail on the issue.

Cllr Davey said: “This is clearly a political decision made for narrow political reasons – it has no basis in fact. Not only have the Tories squandered £93k on the design and consultation on a scheme they never had any intention of implementing, they are also refusing to say what they have done with the rest of the £600k allocated to this scheme."

The Old Shoreham Road cycle lane proposals have now been postponed indefinitely. We'll keep this site updated with the latest information on responses from the local community to what is the latest in a string of botched public consultations and mis-spending of scarce cycling funds.