Hereford will benefit from new active travel measures thanks to £306k funding from the Active Travel Fund.
The Fund provides Herefordshire Council the opportunity to deliver infrastructure that helps to enable and promote walking, wheeling and cycling, supporting an uptake of active travel for everyday trips.
The funding will be used across four schemes: School Streets, Barton Road,
Aylestone Hill and Dropped Crossings.
The School Streets scheme will consist of designing and implementing an alternative parking strategy during the school drop off and pick up period. By restricting access of vehicles outside of the school to residents only during certain times of the day, the scheme will create safer routes for children walking to and from school.
The pilot will include two schools, Lugwardine Primary School and Trinity Primary School, which have been highlighted as suitable and expressed an interest.
The Barton Road scheme will look to conduct a feasibility study into how best to link Great Western Way to the city centre, and better ways for pedestrians and cyclists to cross the A49 junction from Barton Road into the City Centre.
Funding for Aylestone Hill will be allocated to carry out feasibility work on the city side of the hill to identify how best to incorporate future Active Travel Measures (ATM).
The Dropped Crossing scheme will upgrade the route between the Royal National College for the Blind and city centre. This route has been identified as an issue by the College, and funding will also cover the installation of tactile paving along the route to assist visually impaired users.
Cllr Philip Price, Cabinet Member Transport and Infrastructure, said: “This successful bid for funding from Active Travel England is good news for our local transport offer. The schemes were all developed in close consultation with the emerging Hereford City Masterplan and the Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan in order to ensure that activities align with the Council’s wider strategic aspirations.
“The schemes will also help to realise the ambitions of the County Plan and the Council’s commitment to improved community infrastructure that will in turn enable healthier, low carbon travel options, reducing congestion, improving air quality and enhancing health and wellbeing.”
More information can be found in the decision papers.