Two new councils

Local government in Cheshire will change in April 09, with the county council and borough councils merging and then splitting. The result will be two new unitary authorities - one for Cheshire East and one for Cheshire West and Chester. The promise is that the reshuffle will save us all money. Whether money will be saved due to greater efficiency, or purely by reducing budgets, remains to be seen, particularly as the new authorities will inherit budget deficits.

Effect on the Cheshire Cycleway?

What will the impact be on the Cheshire Cycleway, and other county-wide cycle routes?

Until now, Cheshire County Council, has employed a cycling officer (although not always with this job title) as part of the Road Safety Team, who, amongst her many duties, has overseen the designation of the route by Sustrans as a National Cycle Route (hence the route number 70), signposting, general maintenance and re-routing issues, production of an outline tourist map and promotion of cycling in general.

When the county splits, so will the responsibility for county-wide routes, with the West and East looking after the parts within their sections. As for what each authority will do - well that is an unknown at this stage.

Both authorities exist as shadow authorities with elected councillors, so this is the time for us residents to write to our representative(s) to ask what they will be doing regarding cycling provision. There are lists of councillors on the respective websites:Cheshire West & Chester and Cheshire East. What we do know is that Councillor Neil Ritchie holds the Environment portfolio (which includes highways and transport) for the West.

Councillors have been elected for both authorities, and the structure for council employees has been finalised. However, decisions over where council employees will be based is not always clear. In fact a lot of things are yet to be finalised. So far, we know that Anna Geroni has been appointed as Cycling Officer for Chester and Cheshire West. It looks like Cheshire East is ignoring cycling so far. Watch this space - we will update once we know more.

Finding local council cycle route information online- transport or leisure?

Cycling is regarded as both, so when you're checking council websites for the latest route information or people to contact, look at the transport section and the countryside/leisure/tourism sections. Currently, info about everyday cycling is within the transport section of Cheshire County Council's website, and the leisure aspects are on the Cheshire County Council's countryside page.

Although the Cheshire Cycleway route is seen by the local councils as a tourist activity, locals use sections of it for everyday cycling and of course these can be used for day rides too.

Comments

  1 John G Hitchcock    04 Jun 2009 17.27.02

  2 Val    04 Jun 2009 21.01.20