IN SEPTEMBER 2021, Brighton and Hove City Council finally removed the temporary cycle lane along the Old Shoreham Road thanks to some strong leadership by our Conservative and Labour councillors, who listened to residents and the damning data that came out of a consultation earlier in the year. The cycle lane FAILED. In fact, it FAILED miserably.

This in itself is an important lesson – and one we should never forget. We must continue to remind ourselves and fellow residents that the Old Shoreham Road cycle lane was a catastrophic failure. That way, we can all learn from it.

Fast forward a month or so and we were all filling out another consultation – this time the Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan – and what’s on there – a cycle lane for the Old Shoreham Road as a “medium term” ambition!

Beggars belief really – and yet more ignorance from our Green councillors, who refuse to listen to residents at every given opportunity.

It’s far more than that though – because of how these aforementioned councillors along with some cycling activist groups have tried to paint this failure as a success in any way possible, the failed Old Shoreham Road cycle lane became toxic and created a war between drivers and cyclists in our city, probably best depicted by the vandal that attempted to (very badly) paint the cycle lane back on the road.

This was all very unnecessary. Indeed, with all the investment the government were offering for active travel, the council had a golden opportunity to put a cycle lane in a useful location and gain citywide support for their active travel measures.

Instead however, we ended up with something badly thought out, badly placed and so controversial that it split our city in two. This is what we need to learn from - and we can only do that if we admit it was a mistake.

The Old Shoreham Road cycle lane was a failure. Let’s move on from it and focus on where we can build high quality cycling infrastructure that will benefit everyone.

That’s why I started a petition to remove the Old Shoreham Road from the Local Cycling plan. It runs until April 6, so please do visit the petitions section on the council website and sign – and continually share with your local family, friends and neighbours.

It will benefit them no matter how they travel around Brighton and Hove – be it by car, bus, foot – or (most importantly) bike. If anyone really wants to make our city glorious for cyclists, the only way is to move on from the Old Shoreham Road debacle – if they don’t, then they obviously don’t care enough about cycling safety, infrastructure – or indeed their fellow cyclists.

Let’s use 2022 to rebuild our city and make it a more pleasant place for everyone to travel – and make that our resolution.

Jeremy Horne

Address supplied