Save the Date! A10 Awareness Ride/Walk/Scooter, Sunday June 9th

Please join us once again for the annual A10 Awareness Ride/Walk/Scooter on Sunday June 9th.

· By bicycle – from Trumpington Park and Ride, departing 10:30 AM, cycling off-road to the Phillimore Garden Centre front lawn.

· On foot or scooter – from outside the Melbourn Hub, departing 11:00AM, walking or scootering to Phillimore Garden Centre front lawn.

Refreshments on the front lawn at Phillimore: Donations of cake or other edibles would be greatly appreciated. Please bring your own water bottle!

Can you help as a marshal, to help with key crossing points along the cycle ride? If so, please get in touch!

Best wishes,

Susan, Adam, Terry, Tina and Ian – your A10 Corridor Cycling Campaign Committee

Contacta10cycle@gmail.com

We are delighted to invite you to the A10 Corridor Cycling Campaign AGM and update meeting, to be held in person on March 18, 7:30-8:30PM.  

TTP have kindly offered to host us.   Please enter Melbourn Science Park on Cambridge Road, and follow the signs for TTP Campus (straight on through from the MSP entrance to the new TTP building).    

An agenda can be viewed or downloaded from the events and memoranda page. 

The county council has announced a SIX WEEK CLOSURE of the cycleway along the guided busway in southern Cambridge. This affects the section from the start of the guideway near Hills Road bridge to the junction with the spur to Addenbrooke’s. It will be closed from Mon 12 Feb to Fri 29 Mar and will re-open on Sat 30 Mar.

The council is installing a permanent fence between the busway and the cycleway, replacing the temporary one that is there now.

https://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/news/guided-busway-works-begin-to-allow-closure-to-be-lifted

A10 Corridor Cycling Campaign – path maintenance update

Thanks to a vegetation maintenance grant from a local business, Bruntwood Sci Tech, the A10 Corridor Cycling Campaign has been able to commission a good deal of path maintenance work this month, before nesting season begins.

A hard cut-back to side and overhanging growth on much of the path has now taken place, and a siding out and blow away of wet leaf fall accumulation will start this week.

This is the most thorough vegetation maintenance to take place in recent years.

Things will of course start growing again but hopefully a good clear ride can be enjoyed over the coming months. After that, please do travel with secateurs for any enthusiastic brambles!

Best wishes

Susan, Adam, Terry, Ian and Tina – your campaign committee.

Contacta10cycle@gmail.com

A10 Corridor Cycling Campaign – October 2023 Update

Lots of news:

Funding for the path and bridge connecting Melbourn and Royston was approved by the Greater Cambridge Partnership on September 28. This will comprise an off-road path on the east side of the A10 and the cycle/pedestrian bridge over the A505 just to the east of the A10 roundabout, landing on the existing path round the Twigden estate. More steps lie ahead including a statutory public consultation and planning permission; this will take time, but if all goes well, we hope to see construction in 2026. Contributions from local businesses and Hertfordshire local authorities plus funds raised directly by the A10 Corridor Cycling Campaign will form the total funding package.

We’d like to thank each and every one of you for your continued support over many years. Nothing is guaranteed as we have learned over the years, and we need to keep going!

Special thanks to Iris and Yunus, now of Melbourn Village College and previously of Meldreth Primary School, for their third visit to the Board meeting over five years, to make the case.

Thanks also to CamCycle, who spoke at the Board meeting in support of the Royston link, also pointing out that critical safety work along the existing path, especially on junctions, is needed.

Path upgrade, Melbourn-Meldreth Station: Lots of required background work has been taking place but things are moving, and we expect the upgrade to happen in 2024.

Path maintenance: A light cut-back of side and overhanging vegetation along the existing path between Mebourn and Harston took place in September, thanks to a communities grant from Bruntwood SciTech to the A10 Corridor Cycling Campaign, which arranged for work to be carried out by Herts and Cambs Grounds Maintenance. A hard cutback will take place prior to nesting season, and a siding out of the path will take place in spring.

Foxton Travel Hub has been paused, partly due to very significant inflationary pressures on GCP funds and a consequent reprioritization of schemes. The A10 Corridor Cycling Campaign and CamCycle worked hard to ensure that, whatever one’s views on the project, the Foxton Travel Hub would see the optimum adaptations for pedestrians and cyclists.

Making Connections – This is the major GCP package of measures including a Cambridge Sustainable Travel Zone road charge, the freeing up of road space to allow buses to run to schedule, transformational investment in bus services, and additional investment in active travel infrastructure. The STZ road charge was arrived at over a period of 7-8 years’ work, sifting through all possible tools for congestion relief, revenue generation for public and active travel, and the undertaking of in-depth public consultations. Despite very significant adaptations to meet public consultation concerns, a collapse in political support caused the GCP to decide not to progress this project. Serious questions about the future of traffic and travel in our area require answers, as congestion worsens and need for further investment in walking and cycling routes only grows (including on aspects of the Melbourn Greenway, as pointed out by CamCycle at the GCP Board meeting).

Meeting up in person – we’ll be in touch before long about an in-person meeting, if only to raise a glad to continued working together on our quest for safer cycling along the A10 corridor between Cambridge and Royston.

Best wishes Susan van de Ven and Adam Bostanci for the A10 Corridor Cycling Campaign

Some lovely news to share:

Bridge to Royston

We’re delighted to let you know that the Greater Cambridge Partnership is recommending that it fund the long-awaited pedestrian/cycle bridge to Royston.  

This would complete the Melbourn Greenway and the Cambridge-Royston route.  September meetings of the Joint Assembly and Board will need to consider papers and agree recommendations in order to allow next steps – so much work still ahead. 

The item falls within Item 7, Future Investment Strategy – page 392 

We’d like to say a big thank to all our campaigners, young, old and in-between, for helping to get us this far, since our campaign started in 2013 – and your continuing support is still needed. We’ll aim for a campaign meeting in person sometime this autumn, after the key GCP meetings have taken place and we have a clearer picture of what’s next.

Path maintenance

With nesting season now over, work will be taking place soon on overhanging and side vegetation along the path from Melbourn to Hauxton.  Further work, including a siding out of the path, will take place over the course of the year to keep the path in better base condition than of late.  This is possible thanks to a new maintenance grant from Bruntwood SciTech at Melbourn Science Park, and a newly agreed plan with Herts and Cambs Grounds Maintenance. This is coordinated by volunteers.  

Please note that this  does not take the place of County Highways, but supplements the two annual verge cuts and spot work in their brief.  Please, if you notice anything along the path that needs doing, report it here:

https://highwaysreporting.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/

A beautiful morning for cycling and walking saw the biggest turnout ever in the 11^th year of the A10 Annual Awareness Ride/Walk/Scoot, which took place on Sunday June 11^th.

Cyclists made the trek from Trumpington Park and Ride and Melbourn Wellbeing Walkers set out from the Melbourn Hub, all converging on the front lawn of Phillimore Garden Centre in Melbourn, which has hosted the event every year. About 100 people took part.

The event highlighted the popularity of the multi-use paths along the A10 between Trumpington and Melbourn, which ten years ago did not exist.

Children who’d first taken part in the event as tots and toddlers, including Iona Adams, Iris Bostanci and Connie Burge, each cycled nearly twenty miles by the time they got home. 

Collaborating councillors from Royston and South Cambridgeshire villages were out in force, emphasizing the commitment to working together to make the ultimate aim of a bridge over the A505, to connect Melbourn and Royston, a reality. 

The Melbourn-Royston connection is indeed being vigorously pursued by the Greater Cambridge Partnership.  It was great to have Melbourn Greenway officer Kerry Allen and GCP Cllr Neil Shailer supporting the event.

A special treat at Phillimore was Royston Cycles for try-outs of e-bikes, and Melbourn Science Park’s Dr Bike.  A number of people said that e-bikes would enable them to cycle much longer distances than otherwise, including commuting from the villages to work.

We were delighted to welcome Royston Mayor Cllr Lisa Adams who enjoyed trying out an e-bike! 

Cycling campaign veteran Jim Chisholm of Cambridge, who supported the formation of the A10 Campaign ten years ago, came along on his electric folding bike.

Many thanks to everyone for their support, donations to the refreshment stand, marshalling, and most of all, enthusiasm!

Our awareness ride is back on June 11th. This is a largely social ride, suitable for all ages, but with a chance to talk about all things active transport related in the area.

If you wish to put up a copy of the poster, it can be viewed or downloaded here

AGM 13 March, 7-8PM: Our annual general meeting takes place on 13 March at 7PM via Zoom.  Formalities will be succinct and we’ll focus on updates and information. Please let us know if you would like to the join and we’ll send a link.

We will be taking advantage of the opportunity to respond to this landmark Greater Cambridge Partnership consultation on the future of sustainable transport in our area.  

A more frequent and cheaper bus service, offering early, late and new services to ensure people can get to education and jobs without needing access to private car transport, forms the backbone of the proposals.  A Cambridge ‘Sustainable Travel Zone’ congestion charge would form part of the package as a funding stream to sustain bus services, coming in only after an improved bus network is established.  Walking and cycling improvements complement the expansion of public transport.  We encourage people to read through the whole of the consultation document to gain a full picture, before responding.  

Please do respond – and encourage any young people in your household to do so as well, adding their voices to help shape future transport and accessibility choices.

We would welcome any views ahead of submitting our response to the consultation which closes 23 December.

https://www.greatercambridge.org.uk/sustainable-transport-programme/city-access-programme/making-connections