A COUNCILLOR has called for more cycle lanes after Bournemouth was named one of the most dangerous places to ride.

The resort emerged as the second most dangerous place for cyclists in England outside London in government figures.

And Cllr Gritt, who sits on Bournemouth council’s environment and transport overview and scrutiny panel, said more pavements should be split for shared use between pedestrians and cyclists. “The figures did not surprise me at all,” he said.

“I don’t think we do enough.

“I know it’s difficult but we need to be bold in making cycling safe in Bournemouth.”

The department for transport statistics came to light after being blogged by local cyclist Luke Williams.

The latest figures, for 2011, list Bournemouth as having 137 cyclists injured in total, with 10 of those being children. Of that total 21 adults and two children were seriously injured and one adult died.

Bournemouth ranked highly when the figures were adjusted to make an across the board comparison possible.

In May last year the council won £4.6million funding from the government’s Local Sustainable Transport Fund.

Then in June Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset councils were allocated £12.1million from the same fund.

And Ian Kalra, transportations services manager, said creating a safer, easier and more attractive travel environment is “a key priority”. He said: “As part of the work in Bournemouth we consider off road cycling where there is sufficient space to allow this to happen.

“When designing these off road routes our choice in heavily used locations would always be for segregated lanes for cyclists and pedestrians.

“Our recent work has delivered approximately 1.3Km of such segregated lanes alongside Ringwood Road between Bear Cross and Poole Lane Roundabout.”