CORNWALL Council faces a possible legal challenge from businesses in Truro after it announced it is pressing on with a controversial scheme to create wider footpaths for cyclists and pedestrians in the Newham area of the city. The work was halted in May following action instigated by Newham BID – which represents businesses in the busy industrial area – due to safety concerns.

The BID is now liaising with solicitors and transport consultants before deciding what further action to take after the council announced today (Wednesday, August 16) that the scheme to upgrade the existing National Cycle Network route along Newham Road will go ahead. Bollards have been in place on the road past Tesco and Skinner’s Brewery, with no work taking place, for almost three months.

Businesses based in Newham have previously spoken about their fears that narrowing the section of road from 7.3m to the original proposal of 6.5m could lead to serious injury and even death as HGV vehicles passed each other at the same time as cyclists and pedestrians used the new paths, which are part of the community-led Truro Loops project to improve healthy transport links in the city. They also believe it will lead to operational difficulties for their vehicles.

The council said today: “Following discussions held over recent months with Newham BID, the council has issued a formal decision to recommence works on the walking and cycling improvement scheme on Truro’s Newham Road. This decision has been made having full regard to the concerns raised by the Newham BID regarding the width of the road.

“The council has conducted further detailed safety analysis to produce a revised scheme design that retains the important walking and cycling objectives of the scheme whilst also ensuring a road width that enables the safe passage of vehicular traffic. An important factor in reaching this decision has been the need to balance the needs of all users of the route which forms part of the wider, city-wide, Town Deal and Truro Loops project.”

Newham BID is far from happy with the decision. Its chairman Leigh Ibbotson sent an email to all members of the group today.

It says: “A brief message to let you know that Cornwall Council have decided to press ahead with the Truro Loops scheme to create wider footpaths for cyclists and pedestrians. As you will be aware, following action instigated by Newham BID, this has been halted since the end of May.

“We have been presented with a slightly revised scheme within the last couple of days which we are very unhappy with and does not address the concerns of our Newham businesses. We also do not believe the scheme is safe, meeting the requirements of our many road users including those operating HGVs or indeed for the intended users of the new footpath once installed.

“In summary, the new proposal is to reduce the section of road from Tesco to Skinner’s Brewery to a width of 6.8m (from its current 7.3m – originally, the council intended to reduce it to 6.5m) and to reduce the road width from Skinner’s Brewery to Cornish Mutual to 6.5m (a large reduction from its current width and in line with their original proposal so no concession).

“We are currently liaising with our solicitors and our transport consultants before deciding what further action we can take. It is possible that the work will start very soon given that the council have a funding deadline to meet so we wanted to let you know as soon as we could and to inform you that we are not in any way supportive of the new proposals.

“We are very disappointed with this news and will let you know as soon as we have further information on our options.”