County puts the wheels in motion

Riders in both communities will breathe a sigh of relief at this week's news that East Sussex County Council has rubber-stamped the plans.

The bad news is that work to create the beach-top scheme to link with the Galley Hill cyclepath will not be started for another year and will not be completed until 2012.

Despite all the talk about the need to encourage sustainable transport, it has taken an inordinate time to bring what is in essence a simple project thus far.

The need is self-evident. Many people living in one community and working in the other would choose the healthy, low-cost, 'green' option of cycling rather than be dependent on carbon-producing private or public transport were it not for one factor.

Who in their right mind would want to chance life and limb on the fume-laden and horrifically-congested A259?

The solution, which we now hope to see become reality by 2012, is to surface the strip of land south of the railway line so cyclists may pedal a largely level route in safety and tranquillity.

Though the two-kilometre route will cost a whopping 700,000, it really isn't rocket-science.

The need for the cycle path was demonstrated decisively when thousands voted in an online poll.

Now a Memorandum of Understanding signed by Lottery bosses and county council chiefs has finally set the date for the wheels of progress to be set in motion in 12 months' time.

This still leaves a thorny question to be resolved. Riders cresting the rise at Galley Hill will be presented with the inviting vista of Bexhill before them as they prepare to enter the town.

But when will they will able to ride further in off-road safety?

Provision of the St Leonard-Bexhill section of cycle path will serve only to put into sharper perspective the need to close the gap posed by De La Warr Parade - ironically, created originally as Earl De La Warr's private cycle track more than a century ago.

It is a salutary thought that if cycle wheels turned as slowly as the wheels of public administration most riders would long since have fallen off their machines!