Cheshire West And Chester’ Council’s “Walk. Ride. Thrive” Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP) 2020-2030 was approved in July 2020. Campaign members had been part of the LCWIP working group since it was formed (June 2019).
LCWIPs are an England-wide initiative from central government to encourage local authorities to develop realistic plans to encourage more people to cycle and/or walk. It is advantageous for local councils to have an LCWIP when bidding for funds to improve infrastructure and is an essential part of the Council’s focus on tackling the climate emergency”, which is one of its 6 priorities to 2024. The Council has declared a Climate Emergency and aims to reach carbon neutrality by 2045 or earlier, preferably by 2030. This will require a 17 per cent reduction in total travel demand & a 25 per cent reduction in car travel by 2025.
For each major urban area of the Borough: Chester, Ellesmere Port & Neston, Northwich, Frodsham & Helsby and Winsford, the cycle & walking infrastructure improvements which would make most difference were identified. For cycling in Chester, the priority route was a route linking the station with Wrexham Road/Lache – see map. Campaign members were keen that Grosvenor Bridge should be made safer for cyclists, rather than cyclists being expected to only use the route across the Old Dee Bridge, so Grosvenor Bridge was selected for priority analysis.
Public consultation on the draft plan produced over 700 replies, from individual residents, local stakeholder groups and organisations. The Council deemed it an excellent example of partnership working. The LCWIP has to be reviewed and updated approximately every four to five years to reflect progress made with implementation. The Campaign are already working to build on the LCWIP process with our Chester Cycle Map project – we are working on a cycling infrastructure plan for the whole of Chester.
One of the reasons for the Grosvenor Bridge scheme being selected for funding from the Emergency Active Travel Fund is that it was in the LCWIP.
You can download a copy of the CWAC LCWIP document using the link below:
Cheshire West and Chester Council Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan
There’s no mention of any plans for improving walking/cycling access to Chester city centre for residents of Huntington and Great Boughton. A very obvious easy solution would be to put in a foot/cycle bridge over the River Dee at Sandy Lane park, where the summertime ferry currently operates, giving people access to existing paths on the Meadows and the Jubilee bridge. The cycle route currently marked on the map isn’t even a marked bike lane, let alone a segregated path, so it’s a bit cheeky to use that! It involves cycling along main roads with parked cars on both sides. A proper segregated cycle path along Caldy Valley rd and Boughton/Christleton rd/Whitchurch rd out to Waverton is greatly needed. Not a shared bit of bus lane as per the last disastrous experiment. Other things that would help would be upgrading the canal path to have segregated pedestrian and cycling lanes. Also there is supposed to be a public right of way across the fields from Huntington to Christleton (it’s even marked on Google maps!). However this is often impassable due to thick mud, fallen trees and having to clamber over gates – no good for anyone with even mild physical impairments. Who is responsible for maintaining this as this would make for a much pleasanter journey than Caldy Valley Rd? And a actual pavement/cycle path along Pearl Lane and other parts of Christleton village would be very welcome. Access from Rowton Bridge to the High school is along a road with no pavement- not safe for school children to be walking along.
This document is very good at presenting the benefits and the why, but very scant on specific details as to how this will be achieved. Also, why is it still a ‘Draft’ in 2026?!! Surely 6 years is enough time to correct a typo!
The addition of a link between the Greenway and Hoole road is very welcome. However there seems to be no mention of the previously stated new foot/cycle bridge over the railway at hoole Bridge. THis still leaves thiose usig the new link witht he very dangerous crossing of Hoole bridge to acces the train station or town.
Is this bridge part of the separate study mentioned?
Andy, The Chester Gateway Development contains (amongst numerous other things) a proposal for a shared pedestrian and cycling bridge, but the whole thing depends on funds becoming available, so I wouldn’t hold your breath. I suspect the new housing will come first.
The LCWIP seems to be available only as a DRAFT. Has it been formally adopted? Is it being progressed? What progress has been made? To what extent are developer funds being used to improve the links from the new estate in Wrexham Road to the Ovetrleigh roundabout and into town?
The LCWIP has been formally adopted by the council. The version of the LCWIP available here is the final, approved version. The word ‘Draft’ on the title page is simply a typo – the officer involved forgot to remove this when making the final edits. Progressing the LCWIP is dependant upon financial constraints within CWAC which are considerable at present.