We hope you’re having a great summer, being out and about on bikes and on foot. 

A few updates for you: 

Cambridgeshire Active Travel Hierarchy consultation: 

Active Travel Hierarchy | Consult Cambridgeshire (engagementhq.com)  

This consultation gives people a chance to consider the current hierarchy of local road classification for active travel maintenance purposes, and to say whether you think changes are needed in particular areas.   The consultation consists of a mapping exercise where you can raise concerns about very local areas, and a survey on general principles.   

Please feel free to raise any concerns you’d like us to convey in the campaign response.   

The consultation closes on 16 September. 

Thank you – cycling with secateurs  

We’d like to thank those A10 cyclists who during lunch breaks have been taking their secateurs out to tidy up vegetation overgrowth at hot spots on the A10 path.   

If you’d like to head out with your secateurs and need any support, please let us know.  

Meanwhile, we have reported to Cambridgeshire Highways the need for urgent attention to vegetation overgrowth along the path. 

Please report any faults you encounter along the path, such as vegetation overgrowth, at Report a highways fault | Cambridgeshire County Council 

Vegetation maintenance grant, courtesy of Bruntwood Sci Tech 

We’d like to thank Bruntwood Sci Tech at Melbourn Science Park for their generous grant of £5K for the coming year, toward vegetation maintenance. This will allow us to commission a significant cutback of overhanging vegetation, which we propose to do just before nesting season, something we were able to do last year again thanks to Bruntwood. 

Melbourn-Meldreth Station path upgrade 

This is part of the ‘Melbourn Greenway’ delivered by the Greater Cambridge Partnership, whose remit is to deliver infrastructure improvements through ring-fenced national funding.  Eventually the Melbourn Greenway is designed make some improvements for active travel in Melbourn High Street, and to create a new off-road path and bridge connecting Melbourn to Royston. 

The current works on the field path between Melbourn and Meldreth Station are well underway with much attention having been put into the diversionary footway along Station Rd – a fundamentally difficult route and indeed one of the reasons for improving the field path.  The diversion has had vegetation cut way back (and we have pointed out that this needs to be a year-round standard) and has been tested by a local resident rail user and her guide dog.  Some signage has gone missing; please get in touch if you spot anything that needs tweaking. 

The new path will be lit and will accommodate all forms of active travel, whereas the old path incorporated no cycling provision. Some cycle parking will be installed at the base of the London platform.  Together with the Wonderpass and its public art (which will be receiving some remedial paint work and tidy up during the construction period), the new route will have a well-supported feel. 

Greater accessibility needed at Meldreth Station 

Meldreth Station is owned by Network Rail and leased to the Train Operating Company, GTR. 

Meldreth Station inaccessibility (over the tracks, and to the London platform from the field path) has been actively taken up by the Meldreth Shepreth and Foxton Community Rail Partnership over the past 15 years.  The Community Rail Partnership works with the rail industry toward local access and service improvements. 

Lifts: Meldreth station is relatively small in terms of footfall so lags behind the Letchworths and Roystons.  A ramp from Meldreth Station car park to the Cambridge platform was achieved some ten years ago.  Partial funding from a TTP (Melbourn Science Park) Section 106 agreement has been allocated for a ramp from the path to the London platform but the rest needs to come from the rail industry.  An Access for All application to the Dept for Transport for that ramp funding due for determination last year was delayed then announced as unsuccessful just before the General Election.  GTR have told us they will try again.  Meanwhile the Community Rail Partnership helps with signposting to GTR’s Mobility Assistance scheme at Meldreth Station. 

Wheeling channel, stairs over tracks at Meldreth Station: 

We know that only small, lightweight bikes are manageable for hoisting over the station foot bridge steps, along the narrow and steep wheeling channel.  We have asked but sadly regulations don’t allow for the modifications people have suggested (wider and both sides of steps). 

Best wishes 

 
Susan van de Ven and Adam Bostanci