In 2024, there was some positive news in North Tyneside with the completion of the first part of the Seafront Sustainable Route between Tynemouth and Beach Road. Despite this project taking longer to deliver than we had hoped and concerns about some parts of the path, we welcome the addition to North Tyneside infrastructure, with council surveys suggesting that around 700 people a day were cycling along this new path in July and August. The start of the second half of the route, from Beach Road to St Mary’s Island is now underway.
However, in October 2024, the council abandoned plans, first proposed in 2021, to construct a safe cycle path from North Shields town centre to John Spence High School. With one hand the council has shown leadership, but with the other it seems it has caved in.
In light of this decision, we have decided to look at the council’s strategy to explain what its approach is, and to ask what is going on.
North Tyneside Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP)
As well as being part of the North Shields masterplan, the Preston Road cycle lane was also an important link in the council’s Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP).
LCWIPs are intended to “enable a long-term approach to developing local cycling and walking networks, ideally over a 10-year period” and, whilst not mandatory, are expected to shape local authorities applications for strategic funding (from, for example, Active Travel England, who use network planning as one of their criteria for capability assessments).
North Tyneside’s LCWIP appears as an appendix to the borough’s revised cycling strategy, which focuses on enabling ‘everyday cycling’, with a view to making a substantial contribution to the borough’s commitments to sustainable travel, net zero, health and physical activity, a reduction in air and noise pollution, and greater choice in affordable, everyday travel.
This strategy identifies 5 actions, as follows:
- Action 1 – Support a change in culture which prompts a switch to cycling as a healthy and sustainable way to travel, delivering initiatives such as cycle training
- Action 2 – Develop a network of routes suitable for everyday cycling, designed in line with good practice
- Action 3 – Make our town centres and destinations accessible for everyone cycling, including e.g. visitors to the borough; people using adapted cycles; and businesses using cargo bikes
- Action 4 – Improve connectivity between cycling and other forms of transport, making it easier to cycle as part of a longer journey and multimodal trips
- Action 5 – Design everyday cycling into our infrastructure and regeneration plans and use digital information so that the highway network better serves people cycling
Most active travel experts and campaigners would argue that Action 1 is in fact by far the least important, and that developing safe, direct, connected infrastructure (protected cycle paths accessible to all and safe junctions) is the key to expanding everyday cycling. Very few people who don’t currently cycle would switch to cycling simply as a result of a ‘culture change’ and cycle training; they need routes to be safe and reliable.
A missed opportunity for engaging with residents
The LCWIP should be consulted on and should be seen as an opportunity for dialogue with and input from local residents, including both those who cycle and walk regularly and those who want to. Sustrans’ recent Tyneside Cycling and Walking Index found that 34% of Tynesiders cycle (with 14% cycling at least once a week) and that 26% of Tynesiders surveyed do not cycle but would like to.
However, the extent of North Tyneside Council’s consultation on the Cycling Strategy and the LCWIP was an invitation for residents to email their responses. There were no meetings held, no online forms or consultation portals, no attempts at all to actively reach out to local residents, explain the LCWIP and the Cycling Strategy, and gather a breadth of responses and ideas; there were just 23 submissions to the consultation, with the council’s responses showing little evidence of real desire to engage, reflect and learn. This was a real missed opportunity.
Delivering the LCWIP
In order to plan for and achieve the other four actions, the key components of North Tyneside Council’s LCWIP are a network plan for walking and cycling which identifies prioritised routes that improve connectivity and core zones for further development; and a prioritised programme of infrastructure improvements for future investment.
The network plan is represented as a ‘tube map’ and is accompanied by the prioritised programme as a ranked list of projects. We have included both below for reference:
Images Credit:
North Tyneside
Cycling Strategy 2018-32 (Revised 2023) – Public Domain
The top ranked ‘strategic cycle routes’ are as follows:
- North Shields to Tynemouth (orange)
- NCN Riverside Route (grey; part of National Cycle Network)
- Earsdon Bypass – Monkseaton to NT Hospital (blue)
- North Shields to Monkseaton (blue)
- Pavilion to Great Lime Road (red)
- NCN Reivers Route (grey; part of National Cycle Network)
- Four Lane Ends to Wheatsheaf (red)
- Killingworth Road Bridge to Great Lime Road (red)
- Ropery Lane/Hadrian Road (orange)
- Dudley – Four Lane Ends (purple)
The rankings are intended to shape the council’s applications for external funding (including the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements managed by NECA), its engagement with developers around new housing, and its own plans for regeneration, with estimated costs identified.
Progress on delivering the Strategic Cycle Routes
In part to achieve steps towards these schemes, in 2021 the council consulted on a number of proposals. These included plans for some sections of the yellow line, the orange line, the blue line, and the red line, and some additional short links in town centres and to metro stations.
Some of these have been achieved, including, for example, a link from the Coast Road to Percy Main along Norham Road, routes designated by signage around North Shields town centre, and a short section on South Parade, Whitley Bay, albeit with no safe connections to the seafront or the town centre. Overall, there’s been very little real progress on any of the ‘tube map’ routes.
The first ranked route (North Shields – Tynemouth, the easternmost section of the orange line on the tube map) was included in the 2021 consultation and planned for construction within the North Shields masterplan. Yet, all that has been built is a short section across the grass in front of the law courts and some unconvincing new infrastructure (crossings and a painted contraflow) around Stephenson Street and Upper Norfolk Street.
The abandoned Preston Road route forms half of the blue route ranked 4 (North Shields to Monkseaton). In its proposal, the council underlined how the route would “provide a safe link for cyclists, including schoolchildren, between the town centre and A1058 Coast Road”, whilst also tying “into wider regeneration plans for North Shields, and support[ing] the local authority’s ambition to work towards the borough being carbon net-zero by 2030”. In all these ways, it was a key route in the council’s commitment to active travel. Funding had been secured, plans had been drawn up, and construction was due to begin in summer 2024 (following repeated earlier delays), yet it has now been abandoned, with a commitment from the council for just a couple of extra crossings.
The council claims that the design for Preston Road was proving too difficult, though it’s unclear how much expertise and advice they sought from the North East Combined Authority or Active Travel England in the four years that the plans existed. It seems more likely that they were scared off by vocal opposition from local Conservative councillors and a handful of local residents.
If North Tyneside Council gives up on its most highly ranked routes, even when plans and funding exist, we must ask how serious its commitment to active travel really is, despite its repeated public recognition of the many benefits of active travel, for individuals and for the borough as a whole.
Conclusion
On paper, North Tyneside Council and its Labour leaders seem to recognise the enormous contribution investing in walking and cycling could make to their commitment to net zero, to a healthier and more active borough, and to safer streets. These are at the heart of its cycling strategy and LCWIP, but there is little evidence in practice that they are prepared to do all it takes – politically, practically and financially – to follow through on strategic promises and make good their commitment to active travel. Delivery is slow, plans are abandoned or watered down, and standards are reduced to the bare minimum. In part, this reflects the wider national landscape of competitive, short-term funding, inflation and procurement delays, but other local authorities have still achieved more.
With their recent track record, it’s difficult to see how the council will achieve its goal of “an increase in cycling trips of 10% per year” to enable a shift away from the car-dominated streets and neighbourhoods we all encounter everyday, goals which might really make North Tyneside a greener, healthier and safer borough.
The North Tyneside Greens are committed to pushing the council to deliver on the LCWIP and the Strategic Cycle Routes and will continue to work with and support the many other passionate groups in the borough who advocate for better cycling infrastructure and make the positive case for improving infrastructure in North Tyneside.