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Rule-breaking cyclists ‘treated the same as drug dealers, street drinkers and prostitutes’, says councillor

Dorset councillor Roland Tarr called for a ban on cycling along Weymouth’s esplanade to be dropped and for bike lanes to be introduced

A councillor in Dorset has called for an end to laws banning cycling at certain hours along Weymouth’s seafront, which he claimed placed people riding their bikes in the same category as substance misusers, aggressive beggars, street drinkers, and prostitutes.

Councillor Roland Tarr, a local Cycling UK Right to Ride representative, was discussing the future of provisions related to cycling on the promenade in Weymouth, as part of a broader debate on public spaces protection orders (PSPOs) designed to tackle anti-social behaviour in the county.

An existing byelaw, which has been in place since 2018, bans cycling on the esplanade between 10am and 5.30pm, from 1 May to 30 September. The current rules, which aim to allow people to ride their bikes to and from work, replaced a complete ban on cycling along the seafront, introduced in 2009

> Weymouth seafront cyclists banned

However, the council claims that the byelaw had proven difficult to enforce, hence the need for the new PSPO provision. The restriction, however, has been modified so it does not apply to children under 12, while specific exemption can be sought in some circumstances.

A recent public consultation on the proposals was decidedly mixed, with one councillor saying that the responses ranged from demands to install bike lanes on the promenade to banning cycling completely.

At Monday’s meeting of the Place and Resources Overview committee, Councillor Tarr criticised the restrictions, which he claimed placed cycling in the same category as other more serious forms of anti-social behaviour. 

“Including cycling under the same label as drug dealing, substance misuse, discarded paraphernalia, street drinking, aggressive begging, prostitution, and sexually related activity is wrong,” he said.

“I think we should be trying to look at it positively, and try to come up with a positive solution rather than just placing a ban.”

> Weymouth residents disagree over seafront cycling ban 

Tarr instead called for a new cycle lane to be installed along Weymouth’s sea front, which he claimed would benefit local families, mental health, and tourism in the area, as well as help the fight against climate change.

“Weymouth has one of the best cycling systems in the country… but suddenly you come to the seafront and there is a complete gap,” he said.

“The road is nasty… and really unpleasant to cycle down there. If you were a young family out for a cycle ride for the day, cycling around Weymouth, it would be illegal to go down that way.”

The councillor added: “We should be looking at how we can make a continuous cycleway, with a speed limit, which would allow people with their families to cycle through there.

“From a tourism point of view, this county must be identified as a good place to come for an ecological, ‘green’ holiday.”

Councillor Maria Roe echoed Tarr’s call for seafront active travel infrastructure to be introduced in Weymouth, while Andrew Starr recommended that the council should simply target those riding their bikes too fast or too aggressively in the area, rather than banning all cyclists.

> Five-year-old threatened with prosecution for riding bike on Weymouth prom says his mum 

However, Weymouth councillor Ryan Hope defended the restrictions and said that the problem lay with cyclists “training for the Tour de France”.

“The issue is that Weymouth seafront in the summer becomes a heavily populated location and the issue is not with families and young children who cycle on the prom,” he said, “but the issue is with people who are training for the Tour de France that use the Esplanade, and we have a similar situation on the Rodwell Trail.”

He added: “I would guess the fines and exclusions issued in the last five years are countable on a single hand, if any at all, because like the begging policy this is only used as a toolkit, when we do have aggressive cyclist, or those who are a danger to people, as a way to prevent this.”

Hope suggested that cyclists could use the bus lane for at least part of the route, which he claimed was safer than riding on the esplanade.

Dorchester councillor Les Ryan was also adamant that the existing regulations should be kept in place.

“I see no reason why people can’t cycle along the road,” he said. “That’s what the roads are there for.

“It’s also an offence to cycle on the pavement in any other town, so why should Weymouth be any different to that?

“People will speed, there will be anti-social cycling… it’s a recipe for disaster.”

While the committee agreed to support a recommendation to keep the cycling laws as they are, it also heard that a detailed study of the Weymouth area will take place, as part of a Local Transport Plan review, which will in part look at potential sustainable cycling and walking routes in the town.

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.

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20 comments

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Billy1mate | 2 years ago
0 likes

'Hope suggested that cyclists could use the bus lane for at least part of the route, which he claimed was safer than riding on the esplanade.' I use the bus lane and it is great until an inattentive motorist is looking for a bus and doesn't see the cyclist and he narrowly avoided hitting me. Weymouth does have an excellent cycle path network but putting a cycle lane on the Esplanade is absolutely the stupidist idea I have ever heard, is Cllr Tarr is a cyclist, probably not.

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grOg | 2 years ago
0 likes

'byelaw'.. is this a law regulating when you can say bye? as far as I'm aware, the word is bylaw, with byelaw being a very common misspelling in the U.K.

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IanMSpencer | 2 years ago
5 likes

To be fair, they are more enlightened than the majority of the motoring public who simply consider that we are "the same as drug dealers, street drinkers and prostitutes". You can see the evidence in the bile on soshall meedya and by their treatment of cyclists going about their everyday business.

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eburtthebike | 2 years ago
2 likes

Without wishing to waste my time spending a few seconds googling for it, does someone know what this particular council's policies are on active travel?  I'm betting their transport policy, health policy, environment policy and others, all have long sections praising active travel and pledging to increase participation by building new facilities and improving existing ones.

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muhasib replied to eburtthebike | 2 years ago
0 likes

Here you go I had some seconds to waste; it's in a heading called 'Responding to the climate emergency' and says:
Make decisions that discourage fossil fuel car use, withdraw all forms of subsidy to such usage, redirect resources into electric vehicles, walking, cycling provision and improved rail and bus services, and supports projects that help ensure that all citizens can travel to work and education, and access services in an environmentally friendly way.

So nothing to worry about Weymouth council do support cycling provision!

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mark1a | 2 years ago
6 likes

I live in Weymouth and this is a bit of a non-issue. Cycling on the Esplanade was banned completely until 2017, until the bylaw changed to allow cycling between 01/11 and the following Easter, and then morning/evening during the summer. Most roadies including me while "training for the Tour de France" (sic) would use the road/bus lane alongside, so I'm not sure why the usual suspect bellends in the Echo comments are whining about speeds.

Otherwise the whole area is fairly well catered for with bike lanes and shared paths due to the funding that came from the Olympic legacy in 2012 (Weymouth & Portland hosted the sailing events).

Anyway, feel free to pile on in the comments, chocks away...

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Car Delenda Est | 2 years ago
5 likes

Prostitutes? Last time I checked they weren't criminals. Pimps are though, if you want to have a moral crusade you can go after them.

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mdavidford replied to Car Delenda Est | 2 years ago
3 likes

Car Delenda Est wrote:

Prostitutes? Last time I checked they weren't criminals.

I took that to mean that prositution, along with all the other activities mentioned, is banned by byelaws in the area.

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Slartibartfast replied to mdavidford | 2 years ago
0 likes

Also, by street drinkers does he mean rough sleepers and alcoholics or people out on the lash? Because again, suggesting the former is in any way equivalent to drug dealers is a bit weird.

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JustTryingToGet... replied to Slartibartfast | 2 years ago
0 likes
Dogless wrote:

Also, by street drinkers does he mean rough sleepers and alcoholics or people out on the lash? Because again, suggesting the former is in any way equivalent to drug dealers is a bit weird.

It's not weird because I expect nothing else from these types of individuals. What it is is fundamentally wrong

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mdavidford replied to Slartibartfast | 2 years ago
2 likes

Dogless wrote:

Also, by street drinkers does he mean rough sleepers and alcoholics or people out on the lash?

Or people with a tar habit. Scourge on society they are - causing potholes all over the place.

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chrisonabike replied to mdavidford | 2 years ago
1 like

mdavidford wrote:

Dogless wrote:

Also, by street drinkers does he mean rough sleepers and alcoholics or people out on the lash?

Or people with a tar habit. Scourge on society they are - causing potholes all over the place.

I wondered where all that material was going.  Thanks - I'll look out for people shooting the tar and smoking the rocks.

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grOg replied to Car Delenda Est | 2 years ago
0 likes

Women of ill-repute have just been decriminalised in my neck of the woods..

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wtjs | 2 years ago
6 likes

As soon as I saw the first words 'A councillor in Dorset...' I assumed, with some justification, that it was yet another story about a Tory against some cycling provision or other- but I was wrong. However, my expectations were rescued by 'Weymouth councillor Ryan Hope' who ran true-to-type with the 'cyclists training for the Tour de France'- a phrase which, along with anything containing 'cyclist myself', marks someone down as a Mail-reading thickhead.

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Awavey replied to wtjs | 2 years ago
2 likes

Erm Cllr Ryan Hope is a Liberal Democrat... and it was Dorchester Cllr Les Fry - Alliance for Local Living Group (ALL) party, not Les Ryan.

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wtjs replied to Awavey | 2 years ago
2 likes

Erm nothing! I didn't say Hope was a Tory, and I didn't refer to Fry and my reference to Tarr ended with 'I was wrong'.

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Awavey replied to wtjs | 2 years ago
2 likes

You said youd assumed it was another story about Torys against cycling provision and whilst you admitted you were wrong about Tarr, your expectations were rescued by Cllr Ryan Hope who ran "true to type"

How can that be if he isnt a Tory to begin with ? And neither was the other councillor who supported Hope's views, whose name road.cc Ryan has got wrong.

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chrisonabike | 2 years ago
7 likes

I was getting worried for a moment with councillors saying what amounts to "build good infra, sensibly, and this will both resolve conflicts and make the town better place".  Fortunately others brought us back from the brink with familiar refrains: "training for the Tour de France", "aggressive cyclist, or those who are a danger to people", "cyclists could use the bus lane", "I see no reason why people can’t cycle along the road" and "People will speed, there will be anti-social cycling… it’s a recipe for disaster".

Just like the tale of the kids breaking a water pipe by swinging on it only in this version the person who says "why don't we fix the pipe so the kids can swing on it?"  is shouted down by those in favour of electrifying the pipe or wrapping it in barbed wire, getting the cops to patrol the area or forcing the kids to play in the middle of the road.

As you were!

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brooksby | 2 years ago
9 likes

Quote:

However, Weymouth councillor Ryan Hope defended the restrictions and said that the problem lay with cyclists “training for the Tour de France”.

Well, I think road.cc needs to start asking the big professional teams - how many of their riders do their training along Weymouth seafront?

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lesterama replied to brooksby | 2 years ago
2 likes

How do you think Jumbo Visma got so good? Weymouth prom, Dorset weather and Badger beer, of course.

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