Cabinet Approves £4m Hove Cycle Lane Redesign

A £4 million cycle lane along Hove seafront has been approved by the new Labour council cabinet.

The scheme involves removing one lane on the existing westbound side of the A259 Kingsway between Fourth Avenue and the Hove Street traffic lights, by the King Alfred Leisure Centre.

Between Hove Street and Wharf Road, by Hove Lagoon, transport chiefs plan to widen the existing narrow cycle lane, which is on the pavement, to make it two-way.

The scheme was first approved almost two years ago, at a cost of £475,000, by the previous Green administration, with support from Labour. The Conservatives voted against it.

But a year ago, shortly after Labour won a majority at the local elections, the council terminated the works contract and put the scheme on hold for a redesign.

The final total cost of preparatory work and terminating the contract held by RJ Dance has not been made public but there have been suggestions that it was a six-figure sum.

A report to councillors last June also put the price of the redesigned and upgraded scheme at just under £1 million.

At the time, Green opposition leader Steve Davis said that Labour’s proposed redesign of the scheme consisted of “champagne dreams on light ale money”.

The cycling campaign group Bricycles said this week that the cost of the new scheme was now four times higher than originally planned.

The cabinet hopes to part-fund the Hove cycle lane with national “active travel” funding of £1.2 million that was allocated to plans for the A259 Marine Parade, to the east of the Palace Pier. The council must find the other £2.8 million.

And more plans are in the pipeline for a £3 million extension of the cycle lane from Hove Lagoon to the border of Portslade and Southwick.

The aim is to join up with a proposed cycle lane on the Adur and West Sussex side of the border as part of the National Cycle Network route 2 from Dover, Kent, to St Austell, in Cornwall.

At Brighton Town Hall on Thursday (27 June), Labour councillor Trevor Muten, the cabinet member for transport, parking and the public realm, said that the redesign would make the proposed cycle lanes safer for pedestrians.

Councillor Muten said:

“A year ago we set out to show leadership on active travel to demonstrate that this could be done better and safer and to move away from an all-too-often toxic polemic – a them and us between cyclists and motorists that many have experienced, in part fuelled by poor design and hurriedly installed cycleways, with wands in the road reducing traffic capacity and increasing congestion.

“We’ve seen three cycle lanes installed and then immediately changed (meaning) additional costs and a fourth removed altogether.

“A year ago, we stopped a scheme that continued with this approach, fuelling the polemic I described.

“We stopped taking out a whole traffic lane from the westbound only cyclists in front of Victoria Terrace and between Hove Street and the Lagoon, demarked using wands in the road, putting pedestrians between the east and westbound cycle lanes and all eastbound cyclists going along the often-busy shared-space promenade in front of the King Alfred.”

Councillor Muten said that the plans included a wider pavement along Victoria Terrace which would allow outdoor seating for cafés and more space for pedestrians.

The Labour leader of the council Bella Sankey, who represents Wish ward in Hove, said:

“I’m really pleased we are now able to look at what I think will be an improved scheme, which I’m glad to see cycling organisations have welcomed as an improvement on the previous scheme, with all the many benefits highlighted.

“We are very serious about active travel as an administration but we want to properly invest in it and create cycle lanes that are the best that we can create and that we’ll be able to sustain over the longer term.”

During the meeting, Brighton Active Travel and Bricycles tweeted to ask which organisations had welcomed the changes. Bricycles said that the organisation supported the design but had reservations about diverting funds.

Bricycles said:

“A better solution would be to progress the scheme between Fourth Avenue and Hove Street (we are 100 per cent supportive of the plans for this section) and keep the Marine Parade funds for Marine Parade, where there is currently no cycle lane at all.

“Questions were sent to the council on Monday morning and on Monday afternoon they responded to say that they would provide answers once the cabinet had made their decision.”

Bricycles asked why the cost was four times higher than originally planned, what would happen if Active Travel England refused to allow the £1.2 million Marine Parade grant to be reallocated and how the potential redevelopment of the King Alfred might affect the new lane.

Outside the meeting, Councillor Davis said:

“When Labour took the administration, the A259 scheme was fully funded, fully consulted on and ready to go.

“Given that Labour had worked on the project and voted for it prior to last year’s election, it was a shock when they decided to delay the scheme, slowing down progress and increasing costs.

“The massive budget over-run caused by their delays should not be reason to deny the east of the city access to safe active travel infrastructure.”

Conservative leader councillor Alistair McNair submitted two questions about the proposed reallocation of the £1.2 million grant but was unable to attend the meeting so no public response was given.

Councillor McNair said:

“Bicycles are very narrow and they’re not going to get wider. They’re rarely used down on the seafront.

“It’s very dangerous, the cycle lane you cross as a pedestrian, you have to look and dodge them to get to the traffic lights.”

Deputy Conservative leader Anne Meadows said:

“You’ve got cycle lanes that were put in at great expense down Grand Parade. I still see so many cyclists on the road with large lorries trying to get around them.

“They shouldn’t be on there, so why are we spending money on things they don’t use.”