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CYCLE TRACKS MEETING was held on Thursday 17th July 2008 in the Merton Hotel Present: GVEG committee members. Charlie Westhead and Freer Spreckley. Met with Colin Palmer and Jeremy Atkinson Colin Palmer. An old hand at all things cycling in Herefordshire. Member of CTC (Cycle Touring Club, national organisation 80,000 members), MBA (Mountain Bike Association)- access officer for England. Hereford Cycling Forum. Local Access Forum (advises Council on rights of way issues). Hereford Wheelers (Herefords cycling club) etc! Jeremy Atkinson. MBA Access officer for Wales. Has done basic surveys of many cycle routes around the country. Colin recommended we talk to: MIKE HARRISSON. Organised the Malvern to Hay on Wye route. He made a cycle map of Herefordshire in 2000 Recommended we look out for Stuart Edinburgh from CTC Hereford. Difficult and vociferous. Scuppered Hereford to Hay route via Weobley because he had a better idea for the £5m on offer. Ended up getting nothing. Talked about the route now open from Hereford to Abergavenny, via Pontrilas. Route starts in centre of Hereford and gets out of Hereford on the Great Western Way (worth a look/walk/cycle when in Hereford). Mark Edwards from Hfs Coucil has now joined up Gt Western Way with road out of Hereford. Mentioned that Hfds Council does not generally support the Quiet Lanes policy. Recommended strongly that we speak to JOHN PALMER in Monmouth. Good contact who will help and may even come on board with us. Talked about a route up through the Golden Valley, linking Pontrilas with Hay. We will talk more about the route, landowners on the way, Council byways, use of old railway line, in the future, but got some good ideas. We need to look at possible sections of the route and speak to ‘friendly’ landowners. Highly recommended that we push the ‘Safe Routes to Schools’ angle strongly initially when approaching the Council / Sustrans. There is plenty of funding for this scheme. After that, if we can get some sections underway, we should push the idea of a ‘Tourist Trail’ to link up the sections for the whole route. Spoke of a ‘Rail Trail tourist route (Sustrans Connect 3) The man to speak to at Sustrans is HENRY HARBOARD 0121 633 8266 Freer told of the work done in contacting representatives from the Parish Councils and how important the Parish Plans were these days. Colin agreed strongly. Recommended we speak to RICHARD GETHIN from Herefordshire Local Access Forum. He is a Government representative who speaks to the Parish Councils on these matters. Recommended we look at Google Earth to view the potential route, rather than walk it and arouse suspicion from the landowners. Colin would talk to Henry Harboard about our plan. Colin has a friend who has great energy on Eywas Harold parish Council, one of the parishes we did not manage to get to our Green Supper. We should look at Sustrans website for long distance routes in our area (Powys) to familiarise ourselves with what is there. (e.g. Lon Las Cymru route through Wales) In all, a very good meeting with a lot of ideas to progress. Minutes prepared by: Charlie Westhead, July 8, 2008 Click here to return to top of this page.
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