one-way cycle NCR1
The priority issue identified by many community stakeholders and in the Town Plan is to ensure the network of cycle paths in the town are joined up in a useful way. The restriction on two-way cycling in the Thoroughfare is a barrier having a complete network in the town. All the cycle local cycle routes feed into the town's main street, the Thoroughfare yet this "pedestrianised" road has a one-way restriction to traffic and cyclists heading northbound. Pedestrians and people in electric buggies are of course able to travel at will in any direction. Those living in residential areas in the south of the town have to cycle on main roads to the schools and industry and residential areas in the north and vice-versa.
Previous work by Sustrans and the Town Plan has identified the impracticality of only allowing one-way travel for cyclists along the Thoroughfare when this is a National Cycle Route and it conflicts with national health and transport strategy to increase cycling. Though permitting two-way cycling on a one-way street is thought politically sensitive, there is no evidence of increased danger to pedestrians and there are many examples of this practise elsewhere.