Woking Cycle Forum

Woking Cycle Users’ Group

Woking Cycle Forum –

LATEST NEWS:

At the latest meeting of the Cycle Forum on 16 January:

· we pressed for more cycle parking under the new canopy by the station

· we discussed how we might make progress on the construction of Route 6 which sadly is meeting objections at the moment and has been postponed

· we talked about the application that is presently being drafted for Woking to be recognised as a Cycle Demonstration Town. The latest news on 19 June is that Woking has been successful. We will be discussing with Surrey how the money that comes with this award can best be spent.

· we discussed some of the other outstanding matters from current plans.

The Woking Cycle Forum is an informal meeting place for exchanges of views and ideas between the cycling community and those from Surrey County Council who are able to improve conditions for cyclists. Commonly others also attend, including Councillors and officers of Woking Borough Council. For example at the last meeting in January 2008 representatives of Surrey Police also attended to talk about measures to reduce cycle theft and recent publicity about fining cyclists found cycling through the Commercial Way shopping precinct. Its meetings take place two or three times a year and these are opportunities for us to offer constructive suggestions for improvement and for the transport planners to test what developments should be given priority. For example some of the useful things that have come out of the Forum include the following:

· We presented Surrey CC representatives with a comprehensive survey, with photographs, of some of the problem sites on cycle routes radiating from Woking. Surrey has used our list as a basis for prioritising improvements to solve the problems we have highlighted.

· We have commonly been asked for our ‘top ten’ list of desired improvements each year and these have been incorporated in Surrey’s plans.

· We have continually stressed the need to implement a very old study – The Oscar Faber study – which recommended implementing a collection of radial routes for cyclists from Woking Town Centre. This has borne fruit in the last few years as these have steadily been constructed.

· Our pressure next to put in place cycle routes across the town centre to link the radial routes has at last begun to feature in Surrey’s plans.

· Surrey has worked closely in partnership with two of our committee members, Carole and Jane, to install cycle parking stands at doctors and dentists throughout the Woking area. Carole and Jane did the leg work talking to the various surgeries to convince them to agree to the cycle parking and Surrey then arranged the purchase and installation of the stands.

· We are notified of planning developments and are able to maintain pressure for any spending of developers’ money to improve conditions for cyclists. An example is a proposed cycle route alongside the Centrium blocks of flats on the South side of the station for which we are continuing to press and which we remain hopeful will be built before too long.

If you wish to attend the next meeting of the Woking Cycle Forum or you have ideas you wish to be put forward, please contact Ian Wright at iankwright@hotmail.com or Roy Benson at roybenson@ntlworld.com.