Mini-Holland schemes.
As you may already know by now, Hampshire County Council is currently holding a consultation regarding potential “mini-Holland” schemes. As the name implies, a mini-Holland scheme involves intensive spending on local roads and streetscapes to make them, over time, as cycle and pedestrian-friendly as their Dutch equivalents.
Hampshire is aiming to develop proposals to tap into central government funding for mini-Holland schemes. The proposals will need to combine on-road cycle improvements with Low Traffic Neighbourhoods of “quietway” routes that run through residential areas, that are joined up via a series of new safe crossing points on busier roads into a coherent and deliverable set of proposals. The combination of these measures would help to make walking and cycling safer, more pleasant travel options and help to reduce levels of reliance on the car.
I’m sure we don’t have to spell out what an exciting prospect this is!
The three London boroughs which implemented mini-Hollands were each given around £30 million in funding and have delivered a transformational shift to cycling and walking, along with improvements in the local environment that – despite early vociferous objections – have been widely acclaimed.
Have your say.
Hampshire’s consultation has been running for a couple of weeks and has already attracted more than 400 comments pinned on the map of the city.
We are invited to highlight:
- barriers to cycling/walking – e.g. severance/ needing to cycle along or to cross a busy road with high traffic,
- areas that experience rat-running traffic,
- locations where there appears to be vehicles driving above the speed limit.
Cycle Winchester’s advice is to think big. By all means highlight the potholes, the pinch points and other impediments to safe cycling. But this is a rare opportunity to propose radical changes. If you think an area of the city might be transformed for the better by a modal barrier, go ahead and say it.
We will be submitting our own ideas, but we’ll also monitor all the suggestions, and amplify those we think will have most benefit.