A controversial town centre addition has seen hundreds of thousands of journeys since it's installation.
The cycle lanes that have been added to Southport town centre in the last 18 months have proven nothing short of controversial, with part of Talbot Street being turned into a one way street and Queens Road being open to cyclists and buses only.
Sefton Council are now taking another step to making the cycle lanes permanent with concrete bollards being installed along Hoghton Street's cycle lanes.
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This comes as the council have confirmed that between December 2020 and June 2021 alone, more than 100,000 cycle based journeys were recorded using real time counters which have been installed on Chapel Street, measuring the amount of bike-based traffic between Talbot Street and Hoghton Street.
Sefton Council have also hired contractors to increase the width of the cycle lanes where possible, amend and retouch road markings, enhance junction marking and implement additional signs.
Sefton Council are also looking to extend the cycle lanes going to Birkdale and Ainsdale, but this has been met with criticism from local Liberal Democrats and Conservatives.
One of the key complaints made by Conservative councillors is that the cycle lanes have harmed businesses by removing parking spaces from Hoghton Street in order to give cyclists a clear run from Queens Road to the town centre.
Cambridge ward councillor Sinclair Hesketh d’Albuquerque said in June : “The cycle lanes in the town centre have damaged small businesses and made life needlessly difficult for local residents.
“Now they want to extend these cycle lanes and close more roads across other areas, which will have a catastrophic effect on Southport.”
Cllr John Fairclough, Sefton Council's Cabinet Member for Locality Services, said: “We are all too aware that Sefton, like many other councils, were told by the Government to quickly implement strict active travel schemes.
"Owing to the timescales set to us by Central Government, there was relatively little time to develop the Hoghton Street project fully and this was further compounded by a national shortage of materials available to our contractors.
"Now following a detailed series of independent reviews, we have identified and implemented a series of modifications which we feel are necessary to ensure this scheme is as effective as possible.
“Once these modifications have been implemented, we remain fully committed to reviewing the scheme after six months
“Neither the Department for Transport nor the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority have provided definite criteria on which to judge the successes of such a scheme.
"As such our teams will use detailed and publicly available cycle usage data, along with further survey work, to inform future decisions over whether this scheme becomes permanent, modified further or is ultimately removed."
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