- News
- Reviews
- Bikes
- Accessories
- Accessories - misc
- Computer mounts
- Bags
- Bar ends
- Bike bags & cases
- Bottle cages
- Bottles
- Cameras
- Car racks
- Child seats
- Computers
- Glasses
- GPS units
- Helmets
- Lights - front
- Lights - rear
- Lights - sets
- Locks
- Mirrors
- Mudguards
- Racks
- Pumps & CO2 inflators
- Puncture kits
- Reflectives
- Smart watches
- Stands and racks
- Trailers
- Clothing
- Components
- Bar tape & grips
- Bottom brackets
- Brake & gear cables
- Brake & STI levers
- Brake pads & spares
- Brakes
- Cassettes & freewheels
- Chains
- Chainsets & chainrings
- Derailleurs - front
- Derailleurs - rear
- Forks
- Gear levers & shifters
- Groupsets
- Handlebars & extensions
- Headsets
- Hubs
- Inner tubes
- Pedals
- Quick releases & skewers
- Saddles
- Seatposts
- Stems
- Wheels
- Tyres
- Health, fitness and nutrition
- Tools and workshop
- Miscellaneous
- Tubeless valves
- Buyers Guides
- Features
- Forum
- Recommends
- Podcast
news
Saints Trail bike path map (Cornwall Council)Cornwall Council to review “disaster” cycle paths scheme
Cornwall Council has confirmed that it has commissioned an internal and external review of a failed cycle paths project in the county, which has been described by councillors as an “unmitigated disaster”.
The Saints Trail project aimed to create four new off-road and on-road bike trails, covering 30 kilometres in total and crossing public and private land, to enable “safe journeys for commuters, families and visitors” in Cornwall.
However, the £19 million scheme, funded mainly through government grants, has been dramatically scaled back after failing to secure the land necessary to complete the trails, with three of the four routes either altered or completely axed.
> Cycling UK unveils new 150-mile off-road route for Cornwall
According to Cornwall Live, in January 2021 the council’s audit committee was told that the project was set to come in £6 million over budget and was unlikely to be delivered on time.
Despite council director Phil Mason’s assurances that the scheme would still go ahead as planned, budget, time and land constraints continued to dog the project, with further cuts made throughout the last year and a half.
In response, Cornwall councillors have called for a full investigation into the failures behind the scheme, with some calling for a “warts and all” report as part of a broader re-evaluation of the working culture within the council.
On Friday, it was confirmed by the chair of the audit committee Armaud Toms that two reviews will take place, the full findings of which are expected to be published in November.
Two of the routes, Perranporth to Goonhavern and St Agnes to Threemilestone, are still scheduled to be completed in the next year.
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
Latest Comments
- Jakrayan 1 hour 25 min ago
I bought my Dura-Ace groupset to go on a new frame in December 2020. I was surprised when I checked the code to find it was one of the affected...
- chrisonabike 7 hours 7 min ago
Could it be that an industry * with vast wealth and long cultivated influence, which is now seen as providing something both practically and...
- chrisonabike 7 hours 25 min ago
Presumably a) expense b) for something that (mostly) works against your customers' convenience? And the usual "but emergencies - what about when...
- David9694 8 hours 31 min ago
Remembrance event driving incident sees woman reported (paywall)...
- quiff 11 hours 51 min ago
I was going to suggest the Fairlight Strael too, and went to check if it came in on budget. While there, I finally ordered the frameset I've been...
- quiff 14 hours 47 min ago
"No darling, I said a cactus bike holder, not a bike cactus holder."...
- Andrewbanshee 17 hours 2 min ago
I have visited Guernsey and my wife goes there a few times a year for work. This act of premeditated violence shocks me. There are quite a lot of...
- hawkinspeter 17 hours 28 min ago
You could well be right. Personally, I think Avonvale Rd is just a disaster for having two way traffic. So many drivers think the traffic calming...
- hawkinspeter 17 hours 34 min ago
Although Muller Rd isn't great to cycle on (the north end, anyhow), it's certainly not the worst. I'm definitely in the "brave and bold cyclist" at...
Add new comment
11 comments
Good for them for 'fessing up and admitting that this would never work as a cycle path. In Devon they just have facilities that are insane and call them routes.
There's a lack of quality control for cyclepaths in some places, glad that Cornwall isn't joining that club
I agree that this is a terrible mess. However, I'm hoping we may be able to make something good come of it.
Part 7 of Michael Gove's much-publicised 'Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill', which was published yesterday, is all about compulsory purchase powers. I'll take a look to see if it can be used, or amended, in ways that would enable highway authorities to avoid this kind of mess in the future.
If so, the Saints Trail saga could be a very useful case study of why these new / amended powers are needed to facilitate the creation of off-road cycle tracks. Those powers would need to be subject to reasonable checks and balances, of course. But it clearly makes no sense that it seems to be so much easier to obtain compulsory purchase powers for large road or rail schemes than for much smaller but more beneficial schemes like this one.
So, a transport project, in Cornwall is late and over budget - maybe we should name if "The Elizardbeth Line"...
Wrong side of the peninsula. HSTruro might be more appropriate.
You underestimate the ability of folks to have the plans back to front
Surely they would just compulsory purchase the land? It's what they've done for HS2.
Compulsory purchasing land is tortuous, expensive and rightly so. Reading between the lines the landowners probably said that they'd be willing to sell and waited 'till the path was right up to the border with their property before upping the asking price. Landowners did much the same in the 70s with natural gas pipelines although in the case of gas the money was found 'cos it was a project of national importance. This behaviour is as good an advert for a well funded legal department as your likely to find but of course that ain't how Conservative councils roll. On reflection that may be tad unfair 'cos, ultimately, the blame lies with central government's chronic underfunding of their local cousins. Having typed the sentence absolving the local Tories I'm probably going to have to lie down...
To be fair, all you've done is shifted blame from Cornish Tories to London-based Tories...
I'm genuinely livid about this, such a wasted opportunity
I know any kind of "infrastructure" is never without difficulty but this is sadly familiar from how things work up in Edinburgh. I'm struggling to think of schemes which were delivered remotely on time / budget / without being "value engineered" (was new to me - means canning major parts of the project). The normal thing is someone complains, the project is delayed for "consultation", consultants are called in, the staff who managed this on the council's side move on, budget time limits are missed etc.
If only they'd called it a road, and once it was finished banned motor vehicles, it would be done and dusted and only £5m over budget.