Wessex Way speed limit and Slades Farm: It's all good news for cyclists! (From Bournemouth Echo)

Wessex Way speed limit and Slades Farm: It's all good news for cyclists!

1:00pm Monday 22nd February 2010 in

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I'VE been reading a couple of stories and their associated comments with great interest over the last couple of weeks. Both are fairly controversial for their own reasons and by giving my own opinion on these two topics I realise that I will get some people agreeing with me and some disagreeing.

First of all I want to ask a question: Why is the new 40mph speed limit on the final section of the Wessex Way a bad thing? There seem to be lots of people who are very against the new speed limit and I can't understand why. Personally I am in complete support of the reduced speed limit.

The dual carriageway section of this road, used to be a 70mph limit, I remember this from when I passed my driving test over 20 years ago. In those days the road was much quieter and as a young man I was quite happy to drive at this speed on this section of road. Now that the road is so much busier and looking at the general decline of manners and driving standards on our roads, I think that the reduced limit can only be a good thing.

The arguments that say speed does not cause accidents are interesting ones. Bad driving at speed is much more dangerous than bad driving at slower speeds! There is also plenty of evidence to suggest that speed is a contributing factor in plenty of accidents.

As a cyclist and a motorist, I prefer lower speeds. People will still break the speed limit along that section of road, but now they will probably be driving at 50mph instead of 60mph.

The second piece of good news has been the next hurdle towards getting a cycle track at Slades Farm being overcome. The team trying to get this off the ground have been working hard for a number of years and seem to have relentless resolve; I would have been put off a long time ago by the attitude of the Nimbys at the various proposed sites.

According to my memory this is the third proposed site for the cycle track, the first being a replacement to the existing athletics track in Winton and the second being somewhere in Kinson.

It was interesting to read one of the comments in the recent story by someone objecting to the proposals at Slades Farm; they suggested it get built at the Winton site. This was someone who had been following the whole story closely from the beginning! The Winton site was rejected years ago due to the outspoken local residents and their objections.

The Slades Farm site looks ideal to me, the current usage of the land appears to be fairly sparse and the access to the site is good. Assuming the cycle track and facilities doe get built there is still enough space for a large green area to remain. The construction of this facility would be a nice addition as there is already the skate park nearby; our nearest similar track is the indoor velodrome at Calshot.

With the amount of local cycling talent and the heightened interest in the sport following Team GB's success recently I hope that the work towards making this track a reality continues without too may further delays or objections.