One of our main concerns about the area was the safety of kids on their way to and from school. Park View road was incredibly busy each morning and the danger to children cycling to school was an issue that we needed to address. After consultation with Fylde Borough Council and Lancashire County Council, traffic calming measures were installed at the Park View Road/Ballam Road junction in an attempt to slow traffic coming into Lytham and along Park View Road. This did slow traffic up, but the level of traffic was still extremely high, with buses and cars using the road to access St Peter’s, St John’s and St Bede’s schools each morning and afternoon, in addition to commuters leaving Lytham. The problems were made worse by the narrowness of the footpath on the playing fields side of Park View Road.

The obvious solution was to take some of that traffic off the road. Roy Potter, a member of SUSTRANS who had been working tirelessly for many years to extend the National Cycle Network, joined Park View 4U as our cycling expert. Roy was particularly keen to get a path built across the park. With the support of Park View 4U, SUSTRANS generously granted £75,000, which along with £30,000 from Lancashire County Council paid for a path running the length of Park View Road and across the playing fields to Ballam Road via Aegon’s new car park. In addition to allowing access to the path via their car park, Aegon agreed joint use of their car park during evenings and at weekends for users of the park. The new path is now part of National Cycle Route 62, which leads from Hull to Liverpool, then via The Fylde to Keswick.

Since the opening of the path in April 2005 (see photo above), SUSTRANS have carried out two usage surveys and found that it has proved one of the most popular of the Department for Transport-sponsored Links to Schools projects on the National Cycle Network.

Although many kids now cycle to school using the path, it is not, in fact just a cycle path. It is a multi-use path designed for use by walkers, runners and cyclists alike, hence its 3-metre width.

Our plans for the park include extending the path to form a circuit around the perimeter of the park, providing a safe, lighted route for runners, walkers and cyclists. One of the more critical uses for this circuit is to provide a route for disabled cycling. Roy Potter is working with CYCLING PROJECTS “Wheels For All” initiative to provide cycling opportunities for everyone to enjoy. Cycling Projects provides bicycles with stabilisers, tricycles, hand cycles, quad cycles, go-karts and various bicycles made for two, an example of which can be seen here.

We estimate the cost of the two link paths to be in the region of £90,000 if anyone knows of any suitable funding available for this project please contact us.