NclCE – Newcastle Cycling Campaign

Council cuts and desperate times? City must wake up to alternatives

23rd October 2014 NewCycling Uncategorized

Cycle advocates say it’s exactly because of council cuts that business-as-usual is no longer an option and that alternatives transport systems must be explored for a fairer, affordable future, better sooner than later. Katja Leyendecker, chair of newcycling.org, says “In our complex world it can be hard to see the wood for trees sometimes. And this seems to be where Newcastle City Council presently finds itself, in a deep dark forest. Whether recent council cuts are necessary or not, they are happening and we have to adjust – for the sake of our city and its future. We find ourselves[…]

Newcastle City Council continues to remove cycle infrastructure

12th October 2014 NewCycling Uncategorized

After removing cycle specific infrastructure on Silver Lonnen in 2010 and Elswick Road in 2012, Newcastle council continues to dismantle existing cycle lanes, now at a school in Heaton. Katja Leyendecker, chair of newcycling.org, says: “This is almost unbearable to watch how the council is still unable to support sustainable travel options to schools. For example, we are asking them to design in some safe space for cycling for the school run on Tankerville Terrace in Jesmond and they push us back again and again with their excuses. Now they are wiping out an existing cycle lane on Jesmond Park[…]

Warning sent to Newcastle City Council

20th October 2013 NewCycling Uncategorized

Newcycling has warned the council they would become negligent if no action is taken soon. At a Council Cabinet meeting with a focus on transport, held in public on 9 October, the group’s chairwoman went on record to hold Pat Ritchie, Newcastle’s chief executive, to account and ask her to get behind their own council transport policies to avoid the “London scenario”. Like most local authorities London has been ‘encouraging’ people to cycle for decades. Cycling in London, for this reason and others, has doubled in the last ten years making it the envy of other transport authorities. However this[…]