Calderdale needs '200 per cent' rise in cyclists to meet climate target claims councillor

The goal of getting more people out of their cars and on their bikes was raised in a debate triggered by a more than 1,000 strong petition submitted to Calderdale Council.

Calling on the council to support cycling infrastructure, Hannah Dobson said she started the ‘We Support Cycle Infrastructure in Todmorden and Calderdale’ petition after seeing signs go up in Todmorden opposing cycle lane proposals with the slogan ‘our town, our decision’.

Ms Dobson said: “I thought ‘it’s my town too, and I do want a cycle lane, please’.

“So I started this petition to try and give a voice to those who would like more safer places in Calderdale to ride.”

Ms Dobson said the most popular option in a consultation about the Todmorden proposal was “do nothing” – but doing nothing was not an option.

“Our infrastructure is clogged, our air quality is regularly unsafe and we can’t build more road space in our narrow valley.

“Even if we could, the evidence is clear that demand grows to fill road capacity – more space for cars is not a solution,” she said.

Cycling offered a “real and impactful solution” and it was the role of the public sector to take decisions in the collective interest, said Ms Dobson.

“If you keep letting people stopping things happening over a handful of parking spaces, we will never have change.

“You have to de-normalise cars, you have to give space to people on bikes and people on foot and that is going to change our landscape – in our grandparents’ lifetimes we have completely reshaped our landscape around cars, so we can do it again, to make it about people.

“You just have to stop talking and planning and do it,” said Ms Dobson.

Deputy council leader Coun Scott Patient (Lab, Luddenden Foot) said to meet the council’s climate and emission targets by 2038, it needed a 200 per cent increase in cycling.

He agreed there was a need to go faster and further but consultation and engagement also needed to be better and council policy made clear.

Coun Sarah Courtney (Lab, Calder), cabinet member for Regeneration and Transport, said: “It’s important we balance the needs of all residents and businesses.

“We really need to be delivering the right active travel schemes in the right places,” she said.

Coun Regan Dickenson (Con, Rastrick) said he was a former racing cyclist but had never liked cycle lanes for a number of reasons.

“With every respect to your petition and sympathy for it, what is also recognisable is there are a lot of people who aren’t in favour of it as well,” he said.

He agreed there was a requirement to change people’s minds and he believed promotion and improving the canal towpaths of cycle ways could create a “green artery”.

But Coun Patient said the council did not own the towpath and there were issues with it, for example when icy and next to a body of water.